I 



NOZRANI 



IN 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



EGYPT A BASE KINGDOM. 
JERUSALEM TRODDEN DOWN OF THE GENTILES. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 



LONDON : 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, 

M.DCCC.XLVIII. 



LONDON: 
HARBISON AND CO., PRINTERS, 
ST. MARTIN'S LANE. 




INSCRIBED, 



AS A MARK OF RESPECT, 



tit CJ)avle£ JSanrarman, ol Crtmonmogate, JSart., 



BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND, 



THOMAS WILSON. 



a 2 



PREFACE. 



Of the matter and manner of this little book,, 
the Author finds it easier and thinks it better 
to say nothing. Those who honour him with 
perusal, will pronounce a verdict of good, bad, 
or indifferent, according to their own judgment, 
without reference to any plea or defence that 
he can put forth. Whatever may be proved 
erroneous he is ready to retract, and should 
any offence have been needlessly given, he is 
willing to apologize. 



Cathedral Close, Norwich, 
November, 1846. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



Nozrani was far from anticipating the honour 
of a second Edition. To his Reviewers gener- 
ally he is much indebted — the praise has been 
given with cordiality, and the blame without 
harshness. 

It has been remarked, with reason, that the 
somewhat fantastic-sounding title should have 
been explained earlier in the volume, as afford- 
ing a clue to its character — this may be done 
now, by saying that Nozrani or Nuzrannee is a 
near approach to the modern Syriac for Na- 
zarene, or Christian ; and is the popular epithet 
for any wandering follower of Him whose own 
local designation was for a time similarly ex- 
pressed, as foretold in prophecy — " He shall 
be called a Nazarene." 

This edition has been revised with as much 
care as the Writer could bestow, actuated as 



Vlll 



PREFACE TO THE 



he is by respect for his Reader, and gratified 
by the meed of praise hitherto allowed. 

For the occasional notes and digressions on 
various topics, he thinks no apology needed — 
the rational purpose of foreign travel is obser- 
vation and comparison, brought to bear upon 
the familiar interests of home, an employment 
alike profitable and worthy, whether strength- 
ening our love of things as they are, or widen- 
ing our view of things as they should be. 
Thus, in regard to all his various bearings, 
physical and moral, social and religious, a tra- 
veller is supposed to journey with the hope of 
gaining a higher point of view, from which the 
horizon of life may be more clearly swept by 
steady and strengthened vision. Should he, 
however, venture upon telling others what he 
sees, or thinks he sees, let him be on his guard 
against the ready charge of taking "too much 
upon himself;" he is but a unit in the midst 
of a multitude, and, in the event of dispute, 
will be defeated by a majority as overwhelming 
as that which consigned to Bedlam the poor 
man who voted the world mad ; the world re- 
torted, and he was out-voted. If, on the other 
hand, his tone be not that of cavil or conceit, 



SECOND EDITION. 



ix 



he may be sure, when telling the Truth, that 
he speaks in the name of a Power that gives 
weight and rank to her humblest herald. These 
are days, and ours is a land, in which men look 
more to what is said than to those who say it. 

This plea, however, for the lucubrations of 
a rambler and spectator can avail the Author 
only as a general rule ; his individual opinions 
and remarks, here or elsewhere, must pass for 
what they are worth ; whether well judged or 
not, is no question for his decision — he only 
knows they are well meant. 

8, Duke Street, 

St. James\ London, 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

Page 

INTRODUCTION. Preparations for Travel 1 

II. 

VOYAGE. London to Marseilles — French Government 

Packets 4 

III. 

NAPLES. Lazzaroni — Maccaroni — Punchinello — Scylla 

and Charybdis , 6 

IV. 

MALTA. French and English Rivalry— Valetta— For - 
tin cations — St. Paul's Cave — Adriatic Melita — Qua- 
rantine 11 

V. 

LEVANT. Voyage — Roman Catholic Mission to Agra — 
M. l'Abbe on Protestantism — Young English Nun — 
Cape Matapan — Syra — Cy clades — Coast of Africa. ... 17 

VI. 

ALEXANDRIA. Impressions — Hotel — Donkeys — 
Pompey's Pillar — the Ancient City — Pharos — Ca- 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



liph Omar — Generals Hutchinson and Menou — 
Military Uniforms — Prince Albert's Hat — Cleopa- 
tra's Needles — Basha's Fleet — Mosquitos — Dogs — 
Slaves — Roads — Irrigation — Buffalos — English 
Chapel — Canal Mahmoudie — Boat Passage to Atfeh 
— The Nile — Steamer — Scenery — View of the Pyra- 
mids — Indian Passengers — Etesian Wind 26 



VII. 

CAIRO. Impressions — Scenery — Memlooks — Prophecy 
— Cairo Disagreeables — Domestic Manners — Con- 
trast between East and West — Popular Amusements 
— Streets — Bazaars — Wedding Procession 50 



VIII. 

PYRAMIDS. Servant Hassan — Costume — Shaving — 
Provisions — Palm Tree — Khamseen Wind — Old Cairo 
— Hhareem — Coptic Church — Nilometer — Egg- 
hatching — Arab Guides — Tent pitched — Privations 
of the Desert — Three Great Pyramids — Necropolis — 
Memphis — Classic Writers — Sphynx — Work for 
Work's sake — Mummy — Ibis — Saccara — Dashoor — 
Irrigation — Mohammad Ali and Moeris Pharaoh — 
Labyrinth — We, the Men of Old — Tombs — Sesostris 
Statue : 70 



IX. 

CAIRO. Arabic Cramming — Mohammad Ali — Policy — 
Conscription — Taxation — Bastinado — Nostalgia — 
Syrian Campaign — Commodore Napier — Lord Pal- 
merston and M. Thiers — Egyptian Navy — Moham- 
mad Ali's Victory over an English Army — Oppression 
of the Peasantry — Ibrahim Basha — His Better Policy 
— Sights of Cairo — Madhouse — Slave-market — Eng- 
lish Liberty — Abyssinian Slaves — Turkish Bath — 
Black Puddings — Popular Comforts in England — 
Plague — Predestination 118 



CONTENTS* 



xiii 



X. 

Page 

CAIRO. Courts of Justice — English and Turkish Penal 
Codes — Howling Dervishes — Mosques — English 
Church Architecture — Pews — Koran — Imams or 
Priests — Cemeteries — Religious Rites — Prohibitions 
— Inshallah and D.V. — Evil Eye — Egyptian Women 
and Children — Dancing Girls — Ancient Egyptian 
Furniture — Dr. Abbott — Captain Basil Hall — Eng- 
lish Missionaries , 151 



XI. 

CAIRO TO SUEZ. Desert Journey— Camels— Helio- 
polis — Israelite Brick-making — Waghorn — Memo- 
rials of Death — Vultures — Waterton's Essays — 
Desert Starlight — New Moon— Sand Glare — Mirage 177 



XII. 

TO THE RED SEA. Dromedaries— Koorbaff—'Lose 
the Track — Advice to Travellers — Railways versus 
Camels — Steam Providential — Artesian Wells — Sea 
ofEdom 195 



XIII. 

SUEZ. French Consul's House — -Plagues — Bathe in 
Red Sea — Why Red ? — Passage of the Israelites — 
East Wind or North Wind ? — Rameses — Goshen— 
Host of Israel — Modern Suez — Day in the Moun- 
tains of Ataka — Pharaoh and Napoleon — Wells of 
Moses — Negro Ship -Caulkers 199 



XIV. 

SAIL DOWN THE GULF OF SUEZ. Boat and 
Boat's Crew — Mooslim Devotion — Servant Omar — 
Oriental Good Manners — Ablutions — Navigation of 

the Gulf 216 

b 



xiv 



CONTENTS. 



XV. 

Page 

SINAI. Scenery — Decalogue — Town of Tiir — Night in 
the Wilderness of Cades — The Stone Tables — Hebrew 
Names of the Deity — Monastery of St. Catherine — 
The Monks— The Bedouin— Greek Church— Pin- 
nacles of Horeb and Plains of Goshen — Gale of 
Wind — King Hiram's Ships and Servants — Ophir 
and Tarshish — King Solomon's South Sea Fleet — 
Port of Cosseir — Sea of Weeds — Parting Feast to 
the Boat's Crew 222 

XVI. 

COSSEIR TO THE NILE— Desert Route— Salt Springs 
— Marble Quarries — Bivouac — Hyaenas — Camels- 
Mecca Pilgrims — Simoon Wind — Locusts — Beetles — 
Birds — Arabs of the Desert — Horsemanship — The 
Nile 243 

XVII. 

SAIL UP THE NILE. Kanj eh Boat— Crew— Tentyra 
— Temple — Hieroglyphics — Ruins in Egypt — Ruins 
in England — Sepoys in Egypt — Nile without Tribu- 
taries — Waters putrid for a time — Abyssinian Flood 257 

XVIII. 

CROCODILES. Telescopic View— Leviathan of Scrip- 
ture — Nautilus (Ship-fish) — EzekiePs Dragon — 
Crocodiles can turn round — Nubian Jacob — "Mat 
Hhafsh," "Never Fear" — Crocodile Stalking — 
Tybe Ketir 267 

XIX. 

THEBES. Historical — Prophecy — Cambyses — The 
Ruins— Obelisks — Egyptian and Greek Architecture 
— Propylaia — King Rehoboam— King Shishak — An- 
cient Ferocity — Second Commandment — Tombs of 
the Kings — Belzoni — French Traveller — Memnon's 



CONTENTS. 



XT 



Marble Lute — Tacitus and the Classical Sceptics 
- — Shamy and Damy — Arab Wedding — Luxor — 
Karnak — Climate — English Consumption — Mos- 
quitos — Snakes — 1 1 Fiery Serpent" — Hebraic Idiom 
— M. le Bey— Artesian Wells 273 



XX. 



ABOVE THEBES. Syene— Quarries—Nile Scenery- 
Hermits of the Thebaid — Gibbon — Religious Auste- 
rity — Romanism — Scripture Migdol — Obelisks — 
brought to Rome — Pliny's Account — Old Mode of 
Quarrying 300 



XXI. 



NUBIA. First Cataracts or Rapids — Elephantina — 
Nubians — Men — Women — Costume— Ornaments — 
Weapons — Manners — Honi soit qui mal y pense — 
Swimming — Floating — Funeral — Death Dance — Te- 
rence — English Funerals — Church Fees — Whims of 
the Poor — Medecin malgre lui — Nubian Children — 
Old Men — Boatmen — Hay-lay-issah — Baksheesh — 
Bread — English Bakers — Nubian Religion — Ancient 
Church of St. Mark — Hot Wind — Temperature of 
the Blood — Warm Corpses — Nubian Starlight — Book 
of God's Works — Book of God's Word — Lord Bacon 
— Southern Cross — Noon Shadow points South — 
Torrid Zone— ' 1 'Bout Ship" 307 



XXII. 

DOWN THE NILE. Rowing and Towing— Pigeons 
— Guano — Fish — -Dissecting — French Campagnon de 
Voyage — His Opinion of England — Invasion Talk — 
National Defences — Boat Provisions — Rats — Palm 
Tax — Eastern Fiscal — Execution of a Criminal — 
Oriental Stoicism — River Scenery — Teeming Life — 
Alluvial Mud — Irrigation — Reach Cairo — ' 4 God 
made the Country, Man the Town" — Sanitary 
Measures at Home — The Ashley School — Cairo 
Magician — Preparation for Jerusalem Pilgrimage — 
Sheyk Ibraheem — Travelling Temperance 323 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



XXIII. 

Page 

CAIRO TO JERUSALEM. Departure— Desert Route 
— Petrified Wood — Goshen — Rameses — Succoth — 
Isthmus of Suez — Moving Sands — Man lost — Steer 
by Compass — Doree — Hassan found — Rejoicing — 
Nid-nodding — Water — Goat- skins — Sand Bath — 
Pilferers — Serpents — Antelopes — Scripture ' ( Calf ' ' 
—Psalm XXIX— 1 1 The Hinds bring forth Young " 
— Desert Partridges — Vinegar and Charcoal freshen 
Water — Salt Swamps — View of the Sea 337 

XXIV. 

SYRIA. El- Arish— "Torrent of Egypt "—Deb ateable 
Land — Deputation from the Town — Reverend Sig- 
ners — Tiffin in the Tent — Medical Practice — Fumi- 
gation — Khan or "Inn" of the Good Samaritan.... 347 

XXV. 

GAZA. Approach — Contrast — Gardens — Bad Recep- 
tion — Lazaretto — Reflections — Set at Liberty — . 
Samson's Strength — Gates of Gaza — Interpretation 
of Scripture — Joshua staying the Sun and Moon — 
Hebrew Language — History of Gaza — Ascalon — 
Hills of Judea — Insecure Travelling 350 

XXVI. 

HEBRON. Scenery — Cave of Machpelah— Eastern 
Bargains — Tent Thoughts — Ancient Pools — Bazaars 
— Position of the Town — Oaks of Mamre — Hill of 
Bethlehem 359 



XXVII. 

JERUSALEM. Aspect— Impressions— Halt with Map 
and Compass — Crimson Flag of the Crescent — Bethle- 
hem Gate of the Holy City — Latin Convent — Happily 



CONTENTS. 



XVll 



Lodged — Ibraheem dismissed — Last Salam — View of 
the City from Convent Roof — Sunset — Cord-girt 
Monks on the Battlements — " By this shall men 
know that ye are My disciples" — Samaritans no 
dealing with the Jews — Unity of Spirit not uniformity 
of Opinion — Mooezzin Cry — Mahommad the Pro- 
phet of God — A Night on the Roof — Anglican 
Bishop— Bishop's Chaplain — Lord Castlereagh 366 



XXVIII. 

CIRCUIT OF THE WALLS. Tower of David— Em- 
battled Walls — Aqueduct — Lower Pool — Upper Pool 
Scripture Allusions to Water — Baptismal Dipping and 
Sprinkling — Local Considerations — Greek Grammar 
— English Sponsorship works ill — Mount Zion — 
Gehenna — Everlasting Fire — Indefinite — Aceldama — 
Campo Santo — Kedron — Siloam — "The Man bom 
Blind"—" What is Truth ?"— Lord Bacon— Pontius 
Pilate — Religious Impressions in Holy Land — Pool 
of Bethesda — The Angel Troubling the W^ater — 
Sabbath-day — Fourth Commandment in England — 
Siege of Jerusalem by Titus — "Weep for yourselves 
and your Children" — Foundations of the Temple — 
Mooslim Tombs— Jehoshaphat — Scene of Last Judg- 
ment — Bezetha — Solitude round the City 380 



XXIX. 

JERUSALEM AS IT NOW IS. Capital of aPashalic 
— Population — Christian Convents — Churches — Eu- 
ropean Protection — Jews at Jerusalem — Policy of 
appointing an Anglican Bishop of Jewish Lineage — 
Jerusalem a Hill Fortress — Bazaars — Climate — 
Elevation— Pavement — Police — The Public — Con- 
vents for Reception of Strangers — No Inns — Sub- 
limity and Vulgarity — Native Christians — Women in 
the Streets — on the House-tops — Polygamy — La- 
in ecli and his Wives — Tyropoeon — Accumulation of 
Soil — Bridge-Arches from Moriah to Zion — Jews' 
W^ailing-place 406 



xvm 



CONTENTS. 



XXX. 

Page 

THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. Legends— Incorruptible 
Witnesses — Mountains and Valleys — Site disputed 
where they laid the Lord — Eusebius — Jerome — Ha- 
drian — " Jesus suffered without the Gate" — Pool of 
Hezekiah ? — Wall of Josephus — Lamps of the Sepul- 
chre — Eastern Ceremonies 416 



XXXL 

MOUNT OF OLIVES. Garden of Gethsemane— 
Thoughts — Via Dolorosa — View from the Mountain 
— Scene of the Ascension — Glimpse of the Dead Sea 
— Bethany — Lazarus — Bethphage 425 



XXXII. 

BETHLEHEM. Pools of Solomon— Shrine of the 
Nativity — Shepherds by Night — Ruth — Jerusalem 
— Needle's Eye — English Church of St. James — 
European Society 433 



XXXIII. 

EXCURSION TO THE DEAD SEA. Jerusalem to 
Jericho — American Friend — Safe Conduct — Feud 
between two Tribes — Bedouin Guard — Ishmael — 
Depression of Dead Sea — Aspect — Character — Caves 
— Fish — Birds — Bathe — Specific Gravity — Costi- 
gan's Voyage — Ford of the Baptism — Etymology of 
Jordan — Reeyah, or Jericho — The Wilderness of the 
Temptation 441 



XXXIV. 

EXCURSION TO JAFFA. Bab-el-Wady, or Gate of 
the Valley — Key of Jerusalem — Ramleh — Convent — 
The Great Tower — Lydda — St. George and the 
Dragon — Aspect of Joppa — The Convent — Massacre 
by Buonaparte — King Hiram's Navigation — Mosaic 



CONTENTS. 



xix 



Law — The Poor Man's Pledge — Jonah's Voyage — 
St. Peter's Vision — Jews in Parliament — Monks of 
Jaffa — Return to Jerusalem — Last Walk by the 
Temple 453 



XXXV. 

JERUSALEM TO NAZARETH. Marketing— Travel- 
ling Baggage — Tent — Jewish Sepulchres — Modern 
Cemeteries — Funeral Piles — Ruins of Bethel — Jacob's 
Ladder — Vermin — Syrian and English Cleanliness — 
Mount Gerizim — Joseph's Tomb — Jacob's Well — 
Worship in Spirit and in Truth — England Protec- 
tress of Palestine — Samaritans — Hebrew Letters- 
Blessings and Cursings on Gerizim — Jotham's Apo- 
logue of the Trees — Church of John the Baptist- 
Mount Gilboa — Bedouin Banditti— Scorpions 464 



XXXVI. 

SEA OF GALILEE. Scenery — Hot Baths— Boat 
on the Lake— Raphael's Cartoons — Earthquake at 
Tiberias — Modern Jews — Talmud — Capernaum— 
Level of the Lake — Sultan Saladin — Mount Tabor 
— Josephus— Jael and Sisera 481 



XXXVIL 

NAZARETH. Convent and Church— The Nazarene— 
Out of Galilee no Prophet — Common R,oom of the 
Monks — Conversation— Greek Church — Jews in 
Nazareth — English Heretics — Valley of Nazareth — 
Christ in the Synagogue — The Poor Man's Church.... 489 



XXXVIII. 

The Writer to the Reader — Purpose of Travel — Home 
Interests — Church of England and her Services — 
Parochial System — Dissent — The Clergy — The Bi- 
shops—The Laity— Farewell 499 



POSTSCRIPT 



513 



IS OZ R AN I 

IN 

EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

A CHILD has many wishes, but few strong and 
steady enough to outlive boyhood. I had one, 
however, which dated from the spelling of the 
first Bible lesson, and survived the status pu- 
pillaris; for on returning to England, after 
travelling some years through the greater part 
of Europe, I felt rather tantalized than satis- 
fied, even with the remembrance of Rome, 
Athens, and Constantinople: having looked 
that "my feet should stand within thy gates, O 
Jerusalem !" 

"Forte Volenti nihil difficile:" determined 
to go, I discovered reasons for going; and now, 
having gone and returned, these reasons still 

B 



2 



NOZRANI IN 



look as well through the sober medium of time 
past, as when gilded with the halo of time 
which was to come; and to the end of life I 
hope never to recal the recollections of this 
Eastern Pilgrimage without rejoicing in the true 
test of time well spent — "meminisse juvabit." 

To those who may contemplate a similar ex- 
pedition, I would offer a few preliminary words 
of advice, suggested by experience. First and 
foremost, avoid the encumbrance of useless 
baggage. An Englishman is known abroad by 
his array of impedimenta : he usually enter- 
tains a low estimate of foreign means and ap- 
pliances, and takes with him not only what he 
wants, but what he is likely to want; in the 
East, however, experto crede, travel expeditus, 
reduce your Viaticum to what you deem 
strictly essential, and then leave half of it at 
home: you will be spared delay, expense, and 
vexation. 

One (water-proof) portmanteau, will contain 
all you require. The wardrobe should con- 
sist principally of calico (not linen) shirts, 
and two sets of cricket-field flannels. A 
large cloak will prove a good friend by day 
and night, sea and land. Fill up your trunk 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



3 



with the smallest-sized medicine chest, a spy- 
glass, a pocket compass, thermometer in case, a 
measuring tape, compact writing materials, and 
two or three of the best books and maps. No 
Englishman needs reminding of That Book 
which, in all lands and all times, is the best; 
but in the East above all, the best and one 
might almost say the only guide-book the 
traveller requires, is the Book that offers him 
safe guidance through the pilgrimage of life *. 

Fire-arms are useful for show: in Syria all 
men carry weapons, ostentation of defence 
being sometimes a means of security ; an Eng- 
lish gun is moreover a magnificent present for 
any native of rank who may render you service. 
It will be well to spend a few shillings in Bir- 
mingham ware; to wit, knives, scissors, nee- 
dles, pencil cases, and so forth; all of which 
are highly valued by the Turk and Arab. If 



* My travelling library over and above the Bible, con- 
sisted of small editions of Shakspeare, Herodotus, Pau- 
sanias (scarcely worth carriage), Horace, Milman's History 
of the Jews, and Lane's Modern Egyptians, with a somewhat 
lumbering copy of Robinson's Biblical Researches, which I 
left at Malta, having first taken out and cased the valuable 
maps, and made large MS. extracts. 

B 2 



4 KOZRANI IN 

you encumber yourself with anything not really 
requisite, let the exception be in favour of an 
English saddle: great, however, is the advan- 
tage of having but one package. I took out a 
canteen well equipped with culinary pots and 
pans, but found them more plague than profit ; 
you may safely trust for such matters to native 
ways and means. A good Arab servant is usu- 
ally competent to play interpreter, guide, cook, 
butcher, baker, and valet de chambre ; and will 
provide himself with all he wants, much more 
cheaply and effectually than you can do it for 
him. A traveller's maxim in these affairs should 
be, "at Rome, to do as they do at Rome." A 
few letters to influential people are of course 
desirable. A good companion, if you can find 
one, is beyond all price; but if you are not 
sure of him, better go alone, as I did. 

VOYAGE. 

Left London Bridge for Boulogne, January 

22 nd, , and arrived at Marseilles, via Paris, 

January 31st, after seven tedious days and 
nights in a diligence; the roads encumbered 
with deep snow, and the waters of the Saone 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



5 



from Chalons, and the Rhone from Lyons, too 
low and foggy for the steamers, which usually 
descend these rivers, especially the rapid Rhone, 
with railway speed. A month or two earlier 
would, in all respects, be a better season for 
leaving England. On the morning of February 
1st we found ourselves off Toulon, on board 
the French government steamer Sesostris, car- 
rying the Levant mails, and forming one of an 
organized service of twelve vessels— six fitted 
with French and six with English machinery: 
the British superiority being, as usual, very 
decided. These packets are large and built as 
men-of-war, carrying heavy guns and a nume- 
rous crew; the cabins are well fitted up, the 
fares moderate, the table good, and English 
passengers meet with sufficient civility, if they 
will but remember that the officers wear epau- 
lettes, and the ship boasts a pendant*. After 



* French lieutenants are no less punctilious than our 
own on the score of naval etiquette, and are accordingly 
not fond of passengers in any shape, specially should they 
happen to be pragmatical Anglais, catechising the captain 
about their boxes. The gallant officer, if he understand the 
bold Briton at all, wears an expression like that of the 
Trinity Tutor when the freshman's aunt requested the 
sheets might be aired. 



6 



NOZRANI IN 



touching at Leghorn, an uninteresting place, 
and coasting along the marshy and malaria- 
cursed shores of Tuscany, where however the 
Grand Duke is engineering with skill and capi- 
tal at command, we pass Elba and the snowy 
mountains of Corsica and Sardinia, till, on Feb- 
ruary 4th, between Civita Vecchia and Ostia, 
off the pestiferous mouths of the yellow Tiber, 
we catch a distant view of the dark dome of 
St. Peter, looming against the Alban hills, some 
twenty or thirty miles distant. 

NAPLES. 

Here we land, and spend a few hours among 
old acquaintance, the three hundred thousand 
merry and motley Parthenopians. What a 
crowd! and how unlike any other crowd! The 
throng in Fleet Street is like the throng on 
an ant-hill — every one moves on with a defi- 
nite and determined purpose, unregarding and 
unregarded — but the crowd on the Toledo is 
like a swarm of summer flies, humming and 
whirling here, there, and everywhere, with no 
apparent purpose but to eat, drink, and be 
merry. Look at the lazzaroni ! swarthy, si- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



1 



newy, bright-eyed, ragged, and scarlet-capped; 
by turns gay and listless, or sudden and dan- 
gerous as their own volcano, but content with 
little food and less raiment ; a pennyworth of 
maccaroni winding in long coil down his gaping 
throat, for the amusement of an Englishman 
who pays for it, suffices our happy friend, now 
free for the day to bask in the sun, and enjoy 
otium cum dignitate, if the one were not inter- 
rupted, and the other compromised, by inces- 
sant war waged upon a minute host invading 
his personal property, and disturbing his per- 
sonal comfort. Let the curious stranger be 
wary, and keep to windward*. 

To lazzaroni and maccaroni, Punchinello is 
tutelary genius. " Castigator censorque mino- 
rurn." King and nobles, priests and people, all 
alike laugh, listen, and learn in presence of this 
shrewd and fearless organ of public opinion. 
But even the supremacy of Punch is not undis- 



* Beggary in Naples with the " sky for a great coat" is 
a mere merry bagatelle compared with the real horror of 
destitution in the fogs of our own island, where man's 
physical wants are multiplied by five, and if unsatisfied 
to the Italian extent, would soon tend to disorganize 
society. 



8 



NOZRANI IN 



puted: his crowd is the largest and merriest; 
but yonder iinprovisatore mouths, day by day 
in prose and rhyme, never-ending stories to 
never-tiring hearers — the quack doctor ha- 
rangues from his car in scarlet coat, cocked hat 
and feather, waving drawn tooth in triumph 
upon the point of golclen-hilted rapier, till he 
lures another luckless wight to the crunching 
wrench of his sinewy wrist — friars preach, 
priestly processions march, and crowds bend 
low to cross and banner — bells tinkle, horns 
blow, and lemonade flows from icy fountains of 
red and gold ; while the smallest of all thieves 
ply their calling with incomparable dexterity, 
And see that marvellous specimen of dynamic 
ingenuity ! — that many-coloured machine upon 
two lofty wheels, that admirably-balanced cab, 
with one horse and eleven passengers — priests, 
sailors, women, and children — gallopping off 
to Portici! 

Vedi Napoli e poi mori! the purple sea, the 
glancing shore, islands and mountains, groves 
and vineyards, castles and convents, gaiety and 
guilt, beauty and death, the smiling city and 
the grim volcano! — But the gun fires — the 
white smoke curls over tricolore, and we hurry 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



9 



on board from this fascinating focus of love- 
liness and wickedness, sublimity and buf- 
foonery ; this merry and mournful mask where 
beauty adorns beast and beast disgraces beauty, 
Alas ! the aspect of GrocP s earth is lovely ; but 
man, to whom its dominion is given, who might 
himself be crowned with glory and honour, 
proves here as elsewhere, faithless in steward- 
ship, degrading human reason below the level 
of brutal instinct— 

" Er nennt's Vernunft und braucht's allein 
Nur thierischer als jedes Thier zu seyn;" 

but the allein is false and devilish, the sneer of 
Mephistopheles, tempter and betrayer ! 

Vesuvius' smoke drives rapidly before a 
strong breeze, over a foam-capped sea. The 
finest view in the world is perhaps from the 
deck of a vessel in the Bay of Naples; and then 
the names of olden time — Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, Baias and Capri, Tiberius and Pliny 
— Night — Stromboli! glowing red and flashing 
fire from his ever restless crater. Morning — 
the giant Etna ! his snowy head "holding dark 
communion " with his own sulphury cloud. 
Pass the Straits, three miles broad, like a flow- 



10 



NOZRANI IN 



ing river (a>iceavo$ iroTajios) between the lovely 
shores of Sicily and the desolate range of the 
fiery Calabria — here the rock of Scylla, and 
yonder the pool of Charybdis ! But our strong 
paddles laugh to scorn both rock and pool. 
The world is growing old and matter-of-fact — 
the young and golden age of poetry is gone; 
if then we are older and abler, let us hope that 
we shall be found wiser and better, or we 
know the rest — "to whom much is given/' &c. 
— Near that rock of Scylla, on the Italian 
shore, some sixty years since, more than two 
thousand people were swept into the sea by the 
ebb of a tremendous billow, rolled inland by 
the heave of an earthquake. How often has 
that glittering city of Messina, with its eighty 
thousand inhabitants, been made desolate by 
these throes and spasms of her mother earth ! 
How often has she opened to engulph shriek- 
ing myriads ! while the deadly lava has rolled 
its molten flood over peaceful walls and 
plenteous palaces. And Catania, nearer still, 
crouches at the very feet of the fiery monarch, 
who, at one fell swoop, has more than once 
destroyed half its four score thousand denizens. 
Lava torrents, boiling rivers, storms of stone, 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



11 



and coals of fire ! But neither fiery tempest, 
nor molten flood, nor quivering earth, can fright 
the Sicilian from the awful shadow of his na- 
tive mountain, where peace, plenty, and beauty 
reign unrivalled, during long intervals of fierce 
but short-lived desolation. 

MALTA. 

Feb, 7. Entering the harbour of Valetta, 
which might contain the navy of England, we 
anchor among the leviathans of our own fleet 
- — first-rates and two-deckers, with frigates and 
steamers — the band from the flag-ship playing 
the Marseillaise in honour of tricolore *. How 



* The French respect and admire our Navy as much as 
we can wish, and are candid enough in the relative esti- 
mation of their own, at least during the last war. They 
yield, however, no jot of their claim to military pre-emi- 
nence, and if in these days of invasion-question, mooted 
by the first soldier of the empire, we value them as friends 
or foes, it would be wise as well as magnanimous to rub out 
Waterloo from our bridges and Busses, mere boyish brag 
after all, very natural but very foolish, unmannerly, and 
unchristian ; it would reflect honour upon England to be, 
as she could well afford, the first to forego such national 
vanity and vexation of spirit. The recollection of defeat 



12 



XOZRAXI IX 



proud an Englishman feels, after leaving home, 
at seeing once more the gorgeous flag of his 
native land floating from deck and battlement 
— long may that standard "brave the battle and 
the breeze!" Malta, as every one knows, has 
been a British possession since its surrender by 
the French after Xelson's victory of the Nile : 
the degenerate Knights of St. John, without 
firing a shot, had struck their flag of sove- 
reignty to Xapoleon on his way to Egypt, and 
Bonaparte is said to have expressed wonder and 
delight when he inspected the stupendous forti- 
fications. The knights had held possession of 
the island for three hundred years, by a grant 
from Charles the Fifth, after their expulsion 
from Rhodes by Solyman ; and the siege they 



will never frighten, though pretty sure to irritate a formid- 
able foe. The illustrious names, moreover, of Nelson and 
Wellington would be just as well honoured and remem- 
bered, without reviving the old classical machinery of Apo- 
theosis, conveying to the mass of the people no notion but 
that of un-English mystification. We all remember 
the opinion of the old tar in Trafalgar Square, as to the 
lubbers mast-heading his Admiral. The sterling character 
of the country has been hitherto steady, quiet, and unob- 
trusive, " suaviter in modo fortiter in re," as far as the 
poles asunder from puff and sham and balderdash. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



13 



afterwards maintained against the Turk was 
heroic and triumphant. Their Grand Master, 
Lavalette, then built and named the present 
capital of Malta; but the chivalrous commu- 
nity of military monks, becoming in time de- 
crepid and corrupt, expired at last in disgrace 
and contempt. The island is now declared 
European by British Act of Parliament, though 
in soil and climate of African stamp. It is about 
sixty miles in circumference, and little better 
by nature than a barren glaring limestone rock, 
the general aspect of which is painful to the 
eye, from the utter want of shade and the pre- 
dominance of stiff stone wall inclosures. The 
soil has been in great measure brought from 
Sicily. The crop of the dwarf cotton plant is a 
staple commodity, and the oranges we know are 
far famed — especially the blood-red, said to be 
a cross with the pomegranate. The population, 
about one hundred and thirty thousand, are a 
dark, bright-eyed, lively race; the language 
curious from the prevalence of old Phoenician ; 
the religion strictly Roman Catholic. The 
women in their black silk mantillas and hoods, 
are very pleasing : their little fine-worked lace 
mittens, cuffs, and ruffs are in high esteem with 



14 



NOZRANI IN 



European ladies. The climate is very hot. but 
very healthy; except during the African or 
Sirocco wind, which is debilitating and op- 
pressive, blowing principally in autumn. The 
summer heat is tempered by the north breeze, 
and the pressed snow from Etna affords a cheap 
and delicious luxury. Valetta looks oriental or 
Saracenic, or rather Spanish, with its massive 
balconies and deep shadows. The streets are 
beautifully built of the island stone, and though 
steep, are well paved. The numberless steps 
plagued Lord Byron, as they plague more for- 
giving and forgetful travellers; but whatever 
the feet might have to say of Valetta, the eyes 
must acknowledge themselves delighted with 
the brilliancy and variety of long architectural 
lines, bounded by formidable bastions and the 
blue expanse of the Mediterranean. 

We hire a caleche and drive across the island, 
the driver running by the side, reins in hand, 
and much amused at our notion of making him 
take a seat; but they often, poor fellows, get 
suddenly chilled by the north wind, and die of 
inflammation. Visiting St. Paul's cave, we see 
where the Apostle landed, the viper fell. k. t. X. 
Whatever may be your opinion as to the rival 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



15 



claim of the other Malta, it would not be wise 
or very safe to argue the point here, where 
the received version is an article of faith. Cer- 
tain it is, the Adriatic Malta, a low, damp, 
dangerous island, seems more likely to furnish 
shipwrecks, dysentery, brushwood, and vipers 
(Acts xxviii.) than the high and dry rock over 
which the British flag now floats. Etna, one 
hundred miles distant, is seen from the high 
ground, rearing half its giant form out of the 
sea, soaring eleven thousand feet above its level. 
They say the cinders fall here in showers during 
the great eruptions, which light up sea and land 
in lurid grandeur. 

Returning to Valetta, we find the town full 
of carnival masks and mirth and music, which 
is strikingly interrupted at night, if the last 
sacrament happens to be borne by to the bed- 
side of a dying man, when the people fall on 
their knees, and lights are silently brought to 
all the windows from which the priest's tinkling 
bell can be heard : the crowd is very various 
and amusing, interspersed with officers in epau- 
lettes, merry middys, and frolicking seamen. 
The English society is of course principally mi- 
litary and naval — " a little military hot-house" 



16 



NOZRANI IN 



— morning guns and evening guns, morning 
drums and evening drums. The lions of Va- 
letta (may travellers be duly thankful) are not 
very numerous, and therefore not very tire- 
some. The church of St. John is really worth 
seeing: the Mosaic pavement is magnificent, 
and undefiled with spitting. 

English cleanliness, grafted upon southern 
cheerfulness and sunshine, renders Malta de- 
lightful ; the temperature now in February is 
60° in the shade. The Queen Dowager, who 
came here for health and happily found it, has 
left a name which is never mentioned by the 
people without sincere respect. 

My present visit to Malta is shorter than 
the last, for we are summoned on the morning 
of February the 8th on board the Dante, in 
quarantine harbour. Flag of quarantine! yel- 
low rag of abomination ! badge of unclean se- 
clusion from the western world — Teodi! A 
month's solitary imprisonment must be endured 
before again shaking hands with the friend 
who waves his hat upon those steps. A con- 
ventional but impassable gulf is between us, 
and cut bono ? Aye, that's the question. " To 
keep the plague from the shores of Europe," 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



17 



answers the guardiano. And " does it ?" " Non 
so io." Who can decide when doctors disa- 
gree? But it may — so let ns submit in pa- 
tience, as submit we must, and the rather, that 
our faces are turned eastward and not west- 
ward ; and eastward we are free to go, though 
not thence to come. 

Under weigh. Adieu the British standard, 
and that long sweep of bastions and batteries, 
which, when glaring under a night thunder- 
storm, as I have seen them, look like Martin's 
walls of Babylon*. Adieu to Malta. 

THE LEVANT. 

February 9tk, 10th, llth. No horizon but 
the blue sea. Our steam power is insufficient 
for the heavy vessel, which seldom makes more 
than six knots an hour, though the weather 
is beautiful. I have frequent theological con- 
versation with M. FAbbe , a young French 

priest, going up the Ganges to Agra, with a 



* They say the island would require 10,000 regular 
troops to man the battlements in time of war; the garrison 
is now about 1500. 



C 



18 



NOZRANI IN 



party of nuns, among whom is a young English 
lady educated in a French convent, whom they 
have persuaded to take the veil, change her 
name, and accompany the party. The abbe 
seems well read in his own department, and 
though rustic-looking, is courteous and a good 
companion. He wears the cassock and three- 
cornered hat — an inconvenient costume for 
rough weather ; and his mishaps on deck some- 
times amuse the seamen. He prefers my so- 
ciety, " schismatique" as I am, to that of the offi- 
cers of the ship, his own countrymen, and pro- 
fessed members of his own church; but they 
apparently "care for none of these things," 
though M. le Docteur argues volubly for vic- 
tory, assuming, for argument sake, any heretical 
tenets that the abbe may chance to denounce. 
These discussions are generally after dinner and 
supper at the long table, and the nuns utter 
fervent exclamations of protest, through their 
cabin doors, when any startling or impious as- 
sertion is ventured upon. Most Frenchmen 
are clever, and perhaps no nation produces a 
greater number of men of true genius ; which 
makes it more to be lamented, that their modern 
tone should be so often sceptical and cynical — 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



a tone not only opposed to a high moral stand- 
ard, but even to the good breeding upon which 
they still pride themselves. There is, however, 
no doubt better stuff beneath this shallow and 
repulsive surface of sarcasm, the wretched 
fashion of a day, which must soon yield once 
more to the spirit and device of their ancient 
chivalry, " sans peur et sans reproche " — fear- 
ing God, honouring the king, and loving the 
brotherhood. 

One of the abbe's favourite positions is, that 
Scripture infallibility falls to the ground, with- 
out the guarantee and guardianship of an in- 
fallible church; and that authorized preaching 
was the means appointed for the spread of the 
Gospel — " Profecti ergo docete omnes gentes." 
Writing and printing, he asserts with great 
emphasis, have always been unknown to ninety- 
nine hundredths of the human race. He main- 
tains, that if the Bible did not exist in written 
characters, the Church would still teach all, 
and more than all, therein contained; and that 
Scripture does not express every spiritual truth 
revealed to man. "Adhuc multa habeo quse 
vobis dicam, sed nunc non potestis portare, 
cum autem venerit Spiritus ille veritatis, &c. 

c2 



20 



NOZRANI IN 



The abbe seems to prefer the Latin to the 
Greek Testament. He is clever and good- 
humoured; dexterous to attack or defend; zea- 
lous and confident in the cause of Romanism, 
or, as he would say, Catholicism, knowing or 
caring little about the history and claims of 
our Anglican branch of the church universal. 
The endless divisions and subdivisions of dis- 
sent in England, afford him, of course, a fair 
field for sarcasm*; and Bossuet's Histoire des 



f * The power and prevalence of Anglican Dissent, consi- 
dered collectively as the Voluntary in opposition to the 
Endowed system, embarrasses an English Churchman in 
discussion with a Romanist. He must at once admit the 
fact, and can only deplore the mischief, not in a narrow 
spirit of doctrinal dogmatism, but as a palpable evil in the 
way of discordant babble and bitterness. To argue on 
theological opinions with our dissenting friends would be 
to embark on a sea of troubles, but the plain fact of the 
Voluntary system being incompatible with independence 
and bold speaking on the part of the Minister, must carry 
some weight with most minds. Let any man put himself 
in the way, some fine Sunday, of hearing any half dozen 
sermons, or fragments of sermons of the Dissenting order 
in and about London, and let him mark and note how 
much he may hear as touching duty, how much real stern 
practical truth of "judgment according to works," " the 
tree known by the fruit," and so forth, as compared with 
speculative imaginary fantastic palaver about the millen- 
nium, conversion, experience, et hoc genus omne,— let any 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



21 



Variations des Eglises Protestantes is at his 
fingers 5 ends. If the tables are turned upon 
him, with contradictory decrees, bulls, and 
tenets proclaimed and professed within the 
Roman church; he replies that there is always 
an ultimate appeal to one acknowledged keeper 
of the keys — the Pope in council. If he is 
told that Europe has been divided between two 
rival, mutually anathematizing, popes; he says, 
that half Europe was wrong and half right — 
that one pope was true pope, and the other no 



man, on leaving one of these crowded, heated, and perhaps 
excited congregations, ask himself what has been urged 
in the cause of that which u God requires of thee, 0 man" 
— humility to thy Maker, with justice and mercy to thy 
neighbour. Little or none of this, et pour cause, il faut vivre, 
mes tres chers freres, — only think of the Minister's offering, 
and then imagine the commotion of a commercial congrega- 
tion on such a practical topic as the eighth commandment, 
for instance, illustrated and exemplified at the expense of a 
possible baker, butcher, publican, or grocer, any or all of 
these gentlemen being given to understand, that alumed 
bread, morbid meat, drugged beer, and sanded sugar, are 
things incompatible with their respective spiritual elevation 
and heavenly-mindedness. No offence by the supposition 
to the trades as opposed to the professions, but simply that 
the professional men usually adhere to the Established 
Church, where truth is at any rate less likely to be with- 
held, from fear of offence, or pecuniary loss. 



22 



NOZRANI IN 



pope at all. He quoted triumphantly, " Tu es 
Petrus, &c.," but was somewhat embarrassed 
with the 23rd verse of the same chapter, 
66 Dixit Petro Abscede a me Satana;" and could 
scarcely avoid admitting that, as Peter was not 
Satan, but his reproach of the Redeemer 
satanic; so not Peter but Peter's profession of 
the true faith might be the Rock upon which 
the church was built. The play upon the word 
(if the expression may be used) which is en- 
tirely lost in English and German, is more 
perfect in French than in Greek or Latin. Of 
our Reformation and Reformers he speaks bit- 
terly, affecting to hold them all from Wiclif 
downwards, flocci nauci, nihili pili. Harry 
the Eighth, of course, receives no quarter, 
though he maintains that the " Defender of the 
Faith" died in the profession of the Catholic 
verity. He is well acquainted with Cobbett's 
History of the Reformation; and quotes the old 
saying attributed to Lord Chatham, that our 
Liturgy is Roman, our Articles Calvinistic, 
and our clergy Arminian. 

M. l'Abbe professed to be scandalized on 
hearing that I had read a printed paper in a 
confessional in the cathedral of Genoa, where 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



23 



the intermarriage of a Roman Catholic with a 
Protestant is classed in the same category with 
murders and the most infamous offences. He 
insists upon making a wide distinction between 
the Adoration and Invocation of the Virgin, and 
the Saints; we talk, too, about SovXeta and 
\arp€ia, &c, with the usual result of contro- 
versy, the statu quo. The French nuns are 
bad sailors, and we seldom see them; but the 
young English convert walks the deck bravely : 
poor girl! with all her courage she has some 
misgivings, and looked long and mournfully at 
the English flag, as it faded from sight on the 
walls of Malta. She will, no doubt, be of 
great use to the French mission in British 
India, as none of them speak any language 
but their own; her foreign allies are evidently 
jealous of her English sympathies, and her 
English friends. 

February 12. Off Cape Matapan, the most 
southern point of Europe — brown, barren hills 
with snowy mountains beyond; numbers of 
round stone towers dotted here and there, 
occupied they say by families at deadly feud, 
setting law and allegiance at defiance, and 
losing no opportunity of popping at every 



24 



NOZRANI IN 



neighbour who comes within musket-shot. 
This part of Greece has always been turbulent 
and dangerous. The Cape is a dull, barren 
hummock. The tall latteen sails, of the white 
cotton peculiar to the Mediterranean, shine 
brightly in the sun; but squalls are in sight, 
and they run for shelter. — A gale all night; the 
deck swept with the sea; wind right ahead; 
supper rolls off the table, and we make scarcely 
two knots an hour. The hatches being bat- 
tened down, the choice lies between half-suffo- 
cation below, or half-drowning above. 

February 13. The conical white hill of Syra 
is in sight — one of a cluster of islands in the 
Archipelago, and a rendezvous for Levant 
traders. Tiresome, disagreeable Greek place: 
but it looks well at a distance, especially by 
night, when the hill is a pyramid of light 
shining from a thousand windows. The new 
Lazaretto is built and chartered by King Otho : 
the old was worse than a pigsty. 

Here we change vessels, leaving the slow 
Dante, which proceeds to Constantinople, 
while we go on board the Leonidas for Alex- 
andria. This ship carries English machinery, 
and has a good reputation, so though the gale 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



25 



still sweeps fiercely from the north, and the 
Archipelago is intricate and boisterous, we 
trust, O Leonidas, 

"Interfusa nitentes vites sequora Cycladas." 

On going out of the harbour, we are obliged 
to anchor again at midnight; the windlass 
broken, a sailor wounded, and both anchor and 
cable left in the sea. 

February 14. The gale abates, and "we sail 
under Crete over against Salmone," (Acts 
xxvii. 7^ — the dark mountain range capped by 
the snowy Ida. Sunday and Monday, no land 
in sight. 

Tuesday Morning, Feb. 16th. First view of 
the low sandy soil of Africa, with Pompey's 
pillar rising above the once proud city of 
"Philip's warlike son." We enter the har- 
bour, and anchor near the Egyptian fleet of 
formidable two-deckers, surrounded by mer- 
chant vessels under the flags of all nations, 
glittering gaily in a blazing sunshine. The 
Basha's new white palace and a host of small 
windmills, appear the most conspicuous objects 
in the modern city, which, they say, contains 
from thirty to forty thousand inhabitants. 



26 



NOZRANI IN 



ALEXANDEIA. 

The crew of four men that row us on shore 
have only five eyes among them — strong, half- 
naked, mahogany-coloured fellows, who land 
us in the midst of clamour, confusion, and nas- 
tiness inexpressible, surrounded by a crowd of 
men, boys, camels, asses, and dogs; the latter 
are sandy, suspicious-looking brutes, slumber- 
ing by dozens on the shore. The first symptom 
of Egypt's growing civilization is our subjec- 
tion to the inquisition of custom-house myrmi- 
dons, who, however, are easily propitiated by 
the offering of a few piastres; and we take 
refuge in a smart German-imported vehicle 
with two horses, sent down for our accommo- 
dation from the hotel d'Orient, where, after a 
quarter of an hour's perilous bumping, we 
arrive, uninjuring and uninjured, thanks to 
our running footmen, through a most curious 
but not prepossessing crowd of every colour 
and every costume, including no costume at all. 
Narrow, dirty lanes are skirted by wretched- 
looking booths, shaded with rotten mats, and 
displaying a dusty profusion of dates, figs, 
onions, sweetmeats, pipes, and tobacco; with 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



27 



tawdry calico from Manchester, and shining 
tinsel from Birmingham. 

Our hotel is large, airy, and tolerably clean 
and comfortable, after the fusty cribs of the 
steamer, — the Venetian blinds all closed, and 
windows all open, thermometer 65° in the 
shade, iron beds, musquito curtains, and brick 
floors, a la Frangaise. The house stands, like 
the two other hotels, in a large quadrangle, 
which constitutes the Frank or European 
quarter, an oblong unpaved area, with lofty 
white buildings, in the Italian style, inhabited 
by wealthy merchants, and the consular^ flags 
flying from the roofs of several. Fountains 
and other ornaments are in progress. After 
the luxury of a shore-going bath and toilet, 
sat down to calculate the costs of the journey, 
which proved to be nearly £40 from London 
to Alexandria, from January 22nd to Febru- 
ary 16th. 

And now for Alexandria, and our first im- 
pressions on the soil of Africa. But before we 
go out, let us see where we are on the surface 
of the earth. The map makes it 31 deg. 1ST. 
lat., and about 31 deg. E. long, from Green- 
wich, on the very edge of the vast desert which 



28 



NOZKANI IN 



stretches away south and south-west for thou- 
sands of sandy miles, " Leonum arida nutrix." 
Alexandria belongs to the desert, and has little 
or nothing in common with Egypt or the 
valley of the Nile. The nearest mouth of the 
great river is at Rosetta, about thirty miles 
eastward. After hiring, at three francs a day, 
a native servant speaking bad Italian, we 
mount, or rather descend, upon small hand- 
some donkeys, under the charge of a keen 
one-eyed Arab youth, and away we canter, 
the boy screaming and belabouring the poor 
beasties with zeal more than sufficient. Here, 
beyond the town, upon rising ground, we halt 
under the shadow of Pompey's pillar; though 
it turns out from a Greek inscription on the 
pedestal to be not Pompey's but Diocletian's. 
What a magnificent shaft of red granite ! How 
lonely and how grand in its solitude ! and how 
in the world did the engineers of old raise it 
on the high pedestal? The Corinthian capital 
looks clumsy and Roman. They say the shaft 
weighs three hundred tons; it is nine feet in 
diameter, and nearly eighty in length, We 
have all heard of the English sailors who drank 
a bowl of punch on the top: they threw a rope 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



29 



across it by means of a kite, and found the feet 
of a statue broken off at the ankles. 

Under yonder vast field of undulating sand- 
hills, lie the ruins of what was once a city of 
six hundred thousand souls, second only to 
imperial Rome ! The only vestiges of so much 
human grandeur are fragments of marble, por- 
phyry, glass, and pottery, which strew the 
ground where the passing traveller wanders 
in moralizing mood, revolving the names of 
" mighty men, men that were of old, men of 
renown," — Ptolemy and Caesar! Origen and 
Athanasius ! These are names with which to 
"summon spirits from the vasty deep;" but 
" they will not come when we do call." The 
heathen warrior, and the Christian churchman 
— the fierce din of battle, and the no less fierce 
and bloody strife of doctrine — are hushed alike, 
and the fresh breeze of the boundless desert 
blows untainted with human breath over what 
was once the city of Alexander, the capital of 
the Ptolemies, and the see of Athanasius! 
Here was the Septuagint written, and here 
the library destroyed. Alas ! for the Hexapla of 
Origen, the Decades of Livy, and the Comedies 
of Menander. "If," said the caliph, "these 



30 



NOZRANI IN 



books contain only what is contained in the 
Koran, they are useless: let them be con- 
sumed! If they contain aught else, they are 
pernicious: let them be consumed!" One 
cannot look at these waving sand-hills without 
speculating upon what may yet be beneath 
them. Who knows whether the sand of the 
desert may not, like the ash of the volcano, 
bury a departed city whose skeleton may yet 
be brought to light! And what would be 
Pompeii and Herculaneum compared with this 
vast metropolis of the ancient East? All the 
streets were, according to Strabo, iirirrfKarai 
Kai dpfJbarr]\aTai } i. e., wide enough for horses 
and chariots. Two very broad streets bisected 
each other at right angles, forming at their 
intersection a grand square; and the city was 
full of magnificent temples and palaces. — 
(Strabo, lib. XVII., c. viii.) 

Of the great marble lighthouse on the island 
or peninsula of Pharos, no vestiges remain. 
The stucco inscription with which the architect 
cheated the king, and the stone-graven cha- 
racters — * 

" SQ2TPAT02 KNIAI02 
0EOI2 2QTHP2IN YIIEP 
T&N IIA&izOMEN GN " — 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



31 



in which he hoped to immortalize himself, are 
both gone alike, as though written upon sand. 
The ancient mole separating the two harbours 
and connecting Pharos with the continent, is 
still partly visible. When Omar's general took 
the city in the seventh century, he wrote to the 
caliph of four thousand palaces, anc| as many 
public baths; which latter, so runs the story, 
were supplied with fuel for many a day from 
the million manuscripts of the great library. 

The elevated site of Diocletian's column 
commands a good view of the city, the har- 
bour, and Lake Mareotis, into which the 
waters of the sea were poured by the ruthless 
daemon of war in 1801. Our army, under 
General Hutchinson, was exposed in front and 
flank; and to secure or improve its position, 
the canal of Alexandria, which runs for fifty 
miles across a country lower than its own bed, 
was cut through, and for more than a month 
the waters rushed in by gaps of six feet wide, 
inundating and destroying the pride and profit 
of many ages past. An intercepted letter 
from General Menou, expressing his fear of 
such an event, led, they say to its accomplish- 
ment. " Slay, burn, sink, and otherwise 



32 



NOZRANI IN 



destroy/' so runs the warrant of "the big 
wars that make ambition virtue." I once 
heard a friend assert with emphasis, that 
Christian soldiers should be dressed in black*. 

The sky, to the south and south-west, looks 
like a canopy of brass from the reflection of the 
sun's rays from the sandy ocean ; and the sight 
no doubt soon suffers if neglected, which ac- 
counts for the usual loss of one eye among the 
poor people here. The air is very dry and 
bracing ; and they tell me that, in summer, 
many of the principal families leave Alexan- 
dria and encamp in the desert, far from the 
town and the plague, which seems here the 



* The writer has been asked why ? but any one asking 
the question would scarcely care for the answer. As a 
mere military matter, one would think, soldiers ought to 
be equipped on the same principle as sportsmen, ensuring 
freedom of action, and protection from weather, a prin- 
ciple not easily reconciled with grenadier bear-skins, and 
other odd accoutrements, the object of which is apparently 
to inspire terror, or raise admiration. The notion of 
frightening an enemy by terrific aspect was perhaps better 
understood by the Ancient Britons, whose painted skins 
were no incumbrance, whether fighting or marching. 
Prince Albert's hat, with which Punch and others make 
merry, was never laughed at by the soldier, — glad enough 
to escape the old-fashioned water-spout down his back. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



33 



staple topic of conversation, like the weather in 
England. 

About a mile from Pompey's pillar are found 
the only other vestiges which remain of bye 
gone splendour — two red granite obelisks — 
brought, they say, from Memphis in days of 
yore, to adorn the new city of the Ptolemies; 
these monoliths are commonly known as Cleo- 
patra's Needles : one lies prostrate, the other 
stands upright. The hieroglyphics are sharp 
and deep, but worn by the weather towards 
the north and north-east. The name of the 
beauteous Eastern Queen has given celebrity 
to these monuments, but not protected them 
from Arab contamination : the neighbourhood 
is a cloaque of camel and buffalo dung, col- 
lected and piled for fuel. The obelisks are 
about seventy feet long, and a square of eight 
feet at the base. The long-tailed, bright-eyed, 
green lizards dart in and out of cracks and cre- 
vices by dozens, hunting flies and catching them 
with great success. 

Paid a visit to the Basha's arsenal and dock- 
yard, under French superintendence, but ill- 
supplied with stores. The ships are wretchedly 
manned with crowds of fellaheen or peasants, 

D 



34 



NOZKANI IK 



marched nolentes volentes down the country by 
press-gangs on a large scale. The ruler of 
Egypt is not at present in good humour with 
his navy, as the operations of our squadron, on 
the Syrian coast, have check-mated him in his 
game for independent sovereignty. Admiral 
Stopford not only bombarded the towns, but 
supplied the Syrians with many thousand mus- 
kets, which aided materially in driving back the 
army of Ibrahim Basha across the desert into 
Egypt. The harbour is very good, and the 
only one on these coasts, which, together with 
its position as a connecting link between the 
east and west, arrested the eye of the warrior 
and statesman of Macedonia. The great draw- 
back is the scarcity of fresh water, which is 
brought from the Nile, and might easily be cut 
off : the immense ancient vaulted reservoirs still 
exist. Had Admiral Brueys moored his ships 
in this port, instead of anchoring in the neigh- 
bouring Bay of Aboukir, he might perhaps 
have defied or repelled even the hero of the 
Nile ; but his ships drew too much water, or it 
was thought they did, though the heavy Egyp- 
tian eighty-fours now find depth enough. 
The Basha lately went on board one of our 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



35 



men-of-war, and was struck, among other things, 
with the books in the captain's cabin. " Ay," 
he muttered, " books ! books ! — in my officers' 
cabins I should find pipes ! pipes !" 

February 18 th. Letters delivered to vari- 
ous houses. Much hospitality from Messrs. 
Briggs and Terry. The breakfasts and dinners 
give one a favourable notion of the modern 
flesh pots. "We remember the fish we did 
eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the 
melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the 
garlic." The bread is excellent, and the water 
deliciously cooled by evaporation through po- 
rous earthen bottles, brought from the upper 
Nile. 

We have had several showers of rain, which 
are not unusual here, though almost unknown 
in Upper Egypt. The musquitoes are even 
now only kept at a distance by good manage- 
ment of the muslin curtains. It is a matter of 
no small interest to get under this drapery at 
night, without admitting the enemy ; the best 
way is, to whisk a wet towel in all directions 
for a minute or two, and then to effect the 
entry neatly and speedily as may be ; but you 
are by no means sure for the first half hour, 

d2 



36 



NOZEANI Itf 



whether you have succeeded or not, and the 
dreaded huni, precursor of attack, is likely 
enough to proclaim a failure, just as you are 
beginning to repose with the prospect of peace; 
there is nothing for it but to rise in great wrath,, 
dislodge the foe, and begin again. A lady last 
week nearly burnt down the house in singeing 
musquitoes from the inside of the net-work. 
The dogs are another plague ; the whole town 
and neighbourhood swarm with thousands of 
sandy, sharp-muzzled^ slouching, ill-favoured 
beast s, between hyena and jackal, sleeping all 
day in the sun, and moving for nobody. They 
are useful however as the only scavengers of 
the community, but make night hideous with 
their howl. Lucky for us that hydrophobia is 
unknown among them, for they entertain a 
very orthodox Mussulman aversion to Frank 
hats and buttoned habiliments. 

The slave market is a disgusting place — miser- 
able negroes, male and female, scarcely human 
in appearance. The price of a lad, warranted 
sound, is about ten or fifteen pounds. They 
are brought out, turned round, felt in the joints,, 
teeth examined, and made to go through their 
paces like horses at an English fair. Teeth- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 37 

grinding and sleep-walking, or talking, are 
depreciating vices. 

Alexandria boasts but one or two European 
vehicles ; and the promenades, as may be sup- 
posed, admit of little variety. Our evening 
drive is usually through the Rosetta gate to a 
consular garden, where the palms and bananas 
afford relief from the monotonous glare. The 
irrigation is carried on by the Persian wheel, or 
taboot, put in motion by a slow-pacing ox, and 
for ever creaking and groaning on its wooden 
cogs. The mechanism is probably old as the 
Pharaohs. The circumference of the wheel is 
boxed, and pierced with holes, through which 
the water enters, and again issues into a sloping 
channel, from which it is again raised by a 
similar machine. But this system is only avail- 
able when the difference of level is consider- 
able. We hurry homeward when the sun goes 
down, as there is no twilight here, and dark 
driving over an Egyptian road — i. e. no road at 
all — is not a desirable promenade. Amused 
one evening at seeing a naked Arab child 
asleep on the back of a buffalo, his legs dan- 
gling, and his arms round the neck of the 
grazing beast. 



38 



NOZRANI IN 



House-rent and provisions are of late years 
a hundred per cent, dearer, from the influx and 
transit of Indian passengers; but still, accord- 
ing to the English standard, prices are moderate; 
at the hotels you live well for about ten shil- 
lings a day. 

The Levantine Franks bear no very good 
character. It is better to take a native servant ; 
they are more trustworthy, most of them speak 
Italian, and some few English; they are all 
furnished with testimonial scraps, and are said 
to behave well, limiting their peculation to a 
per centage on commissions. They are glad 
enough to exchange Arabic words for Euro- 
pean, and in this way a pretty good travelling 
vocabulary may be obtained. 

The congregation at the English chapel last 
Sunday was between twenty and thirty, prin- 
cipally Indian passengers. After service, a 
party of us walked out by the Rosetta gate to 
see where Abercrombie fell. 

February 21. Having secured a passage by 
the canal boat at Waghorn's office, we embark 
for Cairo. The boat or barge is narrow, dirty, 
and uncomfortable, but proceeds at great speed, 
drawn by horses at full gallop on the bank; the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



39 



palm-tree ropes now and then breaking, and 
the steeds bolting, pursued by well-mounted 
Arabs yelling with all their might. This canal 
of Mahmoudie is considered a great wonder; 
but is little better than a broad ditch, rudely 
dug through a level country requiring no locks. 
The distance from Alexandria to Atfeh is about 
fifty miles, but the junction of the canal with 
the Nile is not yet effected : in 1819, the Basha 
commenced the undertaking by seizing a hun- 
dred thousand peasants, or fellaheen, and set 
them to work under military discipline, — the 
wages principally paid by the bastinado. Those 
who had not spades wherewith to dig, had 
fingers and nails to scoop and scratch withal ; 
and so, at the end of one year, the great canal 
was opened, and a high achievement of civiliza- 
tion accomplished, with little expense beyond 
the bread and onions consumed by a hundred 
thousand peasants, more than twenty thousand 
of whom left their bones in this grave of their 
own digging. 

We passed the night as comfortably as might 
be expected, where fifty people are jammed 
close, with scanty sitting room, in the long, 
low, dirty cabin, fasting and feasted on, — 



40 



NOZEANI IN 



pitiable enough for the poor overland ladies, 
in whose behalf the gentlemen now and then 
scramble for a scraggy chicken from Messrs. 
Hill's hamper. Comfort and convenience are 
utterly sacrificed to apparently needless though 
characteristic English hurry. 

We land at Atfeh before dawn, and stick 
deep in the most tenacious and stinking of all 
mud. The passengers and baggage transported 
from the canal boat to the little steamer on the 
Mle, meet with the casualties to be expected 
where fifty people have each about six hundred 
weight of luggage, consigned to Arab porters, 
slipping, sticking, and sinking in the aforesaid 
mud. The whole place reeks with pestilence 
and putridity; vermin swarm on man and beast, 
and the odious dogs fill up the measure of 
Egyptian abomination : and truly it appears 
thus far, in the words of the prophet, " a base 
land !" During four hours we have full leisure 
for survey and reflection, while our brawny 
Arab friends are floundering across the muddy 
isthmus with three hundred black trunks, in- 
voking Allah to confound the Giaour, his father 
and mother, his grandfather and grandmother, 
to the third and fourth generation of his rest- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



41 



less race. At length, with the aid of planks 
and sand and cinders, the numberless boxes are 
carried, fished up, and piled three deep on the 
deck of the little Lotus, which once plied above 
the bridges on Father Thames, but now pad- 
dles and struggles against the stream of the 
mighty Nile, to the astonishment of the "forty 
centuries which look down from Cheops' pyra- 
mid." The hurry and skurry are over, and we 
gradually shake down in our places, and in 
more placid mood begin to look round, — to see 
and feel that this is really the ancient, sacred, 
and marvellous river, the wondrous flood that 
rolls in lonely grandeur, without the tribute of 
a single streamlet, through fifteen hundred miles 
of burning desert — whose rise and fall spread 
the blessings of a golden harvest, where rain 
never descends and dew never rises to refresh 
the thirsty earth. But for six months the 
vapours, uncondensed and invisible, sweep un- 
broken on the wings of the northern wind till 
they cling to the lofty tops of the Ethiopian 
range, and the clouds collect, and the rains 
descend, and the floods rise, and the riddle is 
read, — "Caput Nili quaerereV 

* "'OfjLrjpov $u7T€Tea (paaKovTos tov NeiXoz/."— (Strabo, 
lib. xvii.) 



42 



NOZRAXT IX 



Old Homer knew it: the head of the Nile is 
in the clouds of heaven. Upon these waters 
floated Moses in his bulrush cradle. Here the 
foiled magician shuddered at the blood-red pol- 
lution of the sacred stream: i% Behold, I will 
smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon 
the waters which are in the river, and they 
shall be turned to blood." Hither came Py- 
thagoras and Plato to learn the wisdom of the 
Egyptians. Here grew the "paper reeds," 
which received and retained for ages the im- 
press of human learning, wisdom and genius : 
"But the reeds and flags have withered; the 
paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the 
brooks, have withered and are no more." Here 
came, and saw, and conquered, Cambyses the 
Persian, Alexander and Csesar, Crusader and 
Saracen, Napoleon and Nelson of the Nile. But 
here, far above all earthly splendour, was shed 
the sacred halo of Him, whose name is above 
every name ; for here " the Child born unto 
us" at Bethlehem sought and found refuge with 
his mother, from the jealous fury of a prince 
whose kingdom was of this world : " And he 
took the young child and his mother by night, 
and departed into Egypt, and was there until 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



43 



the death of Herod." And now, in the nine- 
teenth century from the sera of His birth, we, 
by Christian baptism, professed soldiers and 
servants of His banner, we strangers from the 
west, are steadily stemming the Egyptian flood, 
by the aid of that mighty agent, which may be 
the means appointed for spreading abroad upon 
the earth that Law of Liberty u whose service 
is perfect freedom, and in knowledge of which 
standeth our eternal life." Armed with the 
elastic power of steam, we wait no more for 
wind and tide : f - many run to and fro, know- 
ledge is spread abroad," and the ensign of the 
Cross is lifted up to the nations from afar, from 
the islands of the Western sea. 

The tall tufted palms rise in groves on either 
side the river, throwing their umbrella-shaped 
shadows upon brown flat-topped villages of 
sun-dried mud, whose copper-coloured inha- 
bitants look depressed with the curse of un- 
requited toil, yielding to daily sweat less than 
enough of daily bread; each cluster of huts 
rises a few feet above the level of the ordinary 
inundation, and its own accumulating refuse 
affords increasing security against the slimy 
flood. The depth and richness of the soil 



44 



NOZRANI m 



brought down by the water is wonderful: now 
that the level of the river is low, the muddy 
walls of alluvial deposit rise sometimes twenty 
feet above the stream. Innumerable birds 
come down to the waters: whole squadrons of 
cranes wheeling and flashing their white wings 
in the sun recal Homeric similes — strings of 
camels, in relief against the brazen sky, are 
waving and swinging their solitary way to the 
congenial desert — while Bedouin horsemen, 
wild sons of Ishmael, with tall spears erect, 
pause on the sandy hillocks to watch us glid- 
ing by. The parched wilderness seems some- 
times ready to dispute the passage of the Nile, 
and clouds of sand are driven by the wind 
across its broad and yellow surface. White 
crescent-rearing domes and slender minarets 
shine through the woods of date, and tall 
Juno-pacing blue-robed women, with pitchers 
on their shoulders, come dowm at sunset for the 
sweet waters of the Bahr-el-helloo. To our 
left lies the Delta of Egypt, the creation of 
the river, the land of Goshen — "the best of 
the land*' — fertilized by the many branching 
streams through which the Abyssinian rains 
find their way from the clouds, to join once 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



45 



more the source from which they came— the 
wide expanse of the Mediterranean sea. To 
the right, stretches for endless miles the sub- 
lime and terrible Z a liar a — the region of burn- 
ing thirst, the dancing mirage, and the deadly 
simoom — the wide waste so often swept by the 
eager but awe-struck imagination of our child- 
hood under the thrilling influence of the heroic 
Bruce and the gentle Park. But the life- 
destroying sand gains upon the bounteous 
water, and the dry western channel of the 
Bahr-bela-ma proves that "the waters have 
failed from the sea, and the river is wasted and 
dried; the brooks of defence are empty, and 
the reeds and flags are withered; the paper 
reeds by the brooks are withered, are driven 
away, and are no more." (Isaiah xix.) 

February 23. First view of the great py- 
ramids of Cheops and Cephrenes! The out- 
lines, at a distance of thirty miles, are in sharp 
relief against the sand-reflecting sky. Pass the 
island formed by the junction of the two chief 
branches of the Nile, about twenty miles 
below Boulak, the port of Cairo, where we 
soon arrive, after gliding by the Basha's citron- 
perfumed gardens of Shoobra; his Highness, 



46 



XOZRANI IN 



however, is now in Upper Egypt beyond the 
first cataract, according to report, dodging the 
European consuls, who are pressing him to 
sign a commercial treaty, which the old Lion 
" has no mind to," his mercantile and princely 
policy being guided by the selfsame royal rule — 

" The good old plan, 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

Many rumours are rife as to the ruffled state 
of his temper; and the subject is doubtless suf- 
ficiently interesting to those whose heads would 
fall from their shoulders before a gentle hori- 
zontal wave of that withered hand. 

cc 'Tis a very fine thing to be under the law 
Of a very magnificent three- tailed bashaw ! * 

The two-days' voyage from Alexandria has 
not been without interest. The Indian pas- 
sengers, civil and military, are men to be ob- 
served with attention: for upon them as a 
class, must, humanly speaking, in great mea- 
sure depend the issue of the question, whether 
we are to hold or to lose our unparalleled posi- 
tion in the East, — whether we are to use or 
abuse the mighty power entrusted to our is- 
land of the west, over countless myriads of the 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



47 



descendants of Shem. It is written, "God 
shall enlarge Japheth, and lie shall dwell in the 
tents of Shem;" but is it to us of the northern 
west or the Scythian hordes of the northern 
east, that is to be at last awarded the working 
out of God's will in the religious and social 
development of these two hundred millions of 
the human race? — is it to us that is reserved, 
not the false and fleeting honour of bloody 
trophy and golden spoil, but the real and 
abiding glory of rearing in the East the ensign 
of Light to the nations afar off, who yet 
sit in the darkness of Juggernaut and the 
shadow of death? To us has been committed 
the pearl of great price, "the knowledge of 
God's truth." It may be made in our hands 
to adorn a diadem of undying splendour on 
Britannia's brow, or it may be cast down, to 
our endless shame, trodden under foot by 
devil-possessed swine wallowing in the mire 
of mammon. India will not in vain " stretch 
forth her hands to God." If her cry should 
rise from earth to heaven against us, it " will 
enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth," 
as "the voice of our brother's blood which 
crieth unto Him from the ground" — not the 



48 



NOZRANI IN 



blood of our brother slain, but tlie blood of 
our brother sold. God grant that indignation 
and wrath may never be denounced against us 
as a nation; but if the Mene, Mene, Tehel 
should be written by the destroying angel, 
will not our condemnation spring from " co- 
vetousness which is idolatry?" Have we not 
in the vast extension of our empire been serv- 
ing mammon, rather than serving God? Have 
not all the resources of a mighty people, " pro- 
fessing and calling themselves Christian," been 
made subservient to that " love of money which 
is the root of all evil?" A host of martyrs 
have poured forth their blood in the cause of 
Gold, but where do we find the testimony of 
that nobler army which should have borne 
witness in the cause of Truth? Alas! not 
Truth, but Trade, has been our watchword — 
the moving spring of England's action — the 
mark of her calling — the end and aim of her 
matchless energy. And will she not reap her 
reward, if, after grasping the forbidden fruit of 
wealth and luxury, she gnash her teeth on the 
bitter ashes of debt and pauperism ! 

The large party now going overland is of 
course very variously composed. Some are 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



49 



men ripe in years and judgment, men who 
have earned distinction, and studied life in the 
East and the West, bearing the stamp of 
calmness and decision, worn by those who 
know and are prepared for all the changes and 
chances of human existence, — some are po- 
lished and accomplished members of England's 
aristocracy, eager to achieve eminence in peace 
or war, — some are young and gay and reckless, 
as yet knowing little and fearing nothing as 
touching danger and duty, anxiety and sor- 
row; but physical strength and animal courage 
are good material upon which experience may 
engrave deeply the lines of wisdom. God 
bless and prosper them all! They are wan- 
derers to a far country ; and " he that wanders 
from his home is a bird that wanders from his 
nest." Alas! how many of them will sicken, 
pine, and die far from the eyes that would 
have watched, and the hearts that would have 
yearned over their feverish pillow! how many 
will redden the field of battle with their warm 
blood, and bleach it with their unburied bones ! 
The news from the army in Cabul is gloomy as 
Erebus, and expectation is on tiptoe for the 
next mail. 



E 



50 



NOZRANI IN 



Our little staggering steamer has been per- 
petually running upon sand banks, and we 
have several times regretted not hiring a native 
boat at Atfeh. The north or Etesian wind 
blows for nine months out of twelve, and the 
tall latteen sails are urged by its influence 
steadily and rapidly up the stream. It would 
clearly be more in accordance with the genius 
loci to trust the fresh and gentle breeze, than 
thus to puff smoking defiance in the venerable 
face of 

" AiyVTTTOLO $UTT€T€OS TTOTafXOlO." 

The river is more than a mile from Cairo 
at this season; so, hiring camels for luggage 
and donkeys for ourselves, we trudge across 
the sun-baked plain, every hoof raising a thick 
cloud of impalpable dust, which soon renders 
man and beast and baggage of the same com- 
plexion. 

CAIRO. 

To avoid the noise and confusion of the In- 
dian transit, I establish myself at the French 
house, Del Giardino, and become acquainted 
with a young American physician, travelling 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



51 



with much the same purpose as myself. Our 
first evening expedition, pour nous orienter, 
is to the towering '"Acropolis, the lofty fortress 
of this Arabian capital, — this mighty city of 
Saladin, where three hundred thousand Moos- 
lims still rear the Crescent and revile the Cross 
— " where Kelb and Nozrani, Dog and Nazarene, 
still startle the Christian as the curse falls 
upon his ear, muttered with a scowl of hatred 
on the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, from 
the bearded zealot who proclaims a creed 
he will maintain to the death: " There is 
no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his 
prophet." 

This then is Grand Cairo ! From these high 
embattled walls we are looking down upon the 
capital of the mighty Saladin, a city of the 
thousand and one enchanting and enchanted 
nights of the favourite Sultana. All hail, ye 
recollections of wondering and delighted child- 
hood! Ye caliphs, viziers, and genii, here ye 
have, or had, your " local habitation !" Here 
below us spreads the vast and varied expanse 
of " El- Ckayireh "—the Victorious — glittering 
in the dusty gold and white of mosque and 



52 



NOZRANI IN 



minaret under the blazing rays of a setting 
sun*. 

Cairo, between eight and nine miles in cir- 
cumference, is surrounded by walls and gates. 
Rising eastward from the city is the arid lime- 
stone range of the mountains of Mookatam, 
stretching far away to the Red Sea. West- 
ward, is the Great Desert, from which we are 
separated only by the river and its green strip 
of irrigated land on either side ; and this strip 
of green, more or less narrow according to 
the season and the nature of the channel, is 
the termination of the valley of Upper Egypt, 
which here begins to spread into the broad, 
flat, and well-cultivated because well-watered, 
Delta of the Nile. One glance at the scene 
before us, explains the veneration of the Egyp- 
tian for his river; its waters are indeed to 
him waters of life, for they are the sole barrier 
which protects his native land from the deadly 
invasion of the desert sand, sweeping before the 
fiery simoom with the besom of destruction. 

* The modern name of the capital is Muzr, or Mizr : 
query, whether related to Mizraim, second son of Ham, 
second son of Noah, and reputed father of the African 
race ? 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



53 



Yonder stand, and have stood for three thou- 
sand years, on the very edge of that sandy 
ocean, the Pyramids of Egypt! From the 
point of the grand marble mosque, built by 
the Basha, the prospect is vast and magnificent, 
the atmosphere being so clear that distant ob- 
jects preserve a distinct outline. Immediately 
beneath is the Great Square, crowded with 
bearded and turbaned heads, and bodies clad 
in the flowing robes of the East ; jugglers are 
twisting serpents and eating fire., while the 
slow-moving dance, the monotonous song, and 
the long-spun tale attract and rivet solemn ga- 
zing circles of the faith of El-Islam. The fa- 
vourite music of Egypt, the shrill quavering 
of the Nay and the duh-a-rub-dub of the Da- 
rahookeh and Tubblebeladee, send up far and 
wide through the dry and elastic air their 
ceaseless and drowsy sound. 

The chief mosque of the Sooltan Hassan 
towers high in the decorated pride of Saracenic 
architecture, and from among the green palms 
rise numberless white tapering minarets, where 
the Mooeddins are now pouring forth at full 
pitch, from the lofty gallery or madneh, the 
clear and prolonged notes of the musical Adan, 



54 



NOZRANI IN 



or Call to prayer, the sounds of which from 
many a mosque rise and fall in measured and 
solemn cadence on the ear: — 

Allah hoo akbarj 

Ashadoo annah la illaha il Allah; 

Ashadoo annah Mohammad rasool Allah. 

Hheiya ala selah, 

Hheiya alafelah: 

La illaha il Allah. 

66 God is great ; 

I protest there is no God but God ; 

I protest Mohammad is the Prophet of God, 

Come to prayer, 

Come to rest : 

There is no God but God." 

The sound of a bell is an abomination to the 
Arab, the human voice alone, pealing through 
the upraised hollow hands of the Mooeddin, 
summons the Mooslim to the mosque. 

While walking round the ramparts we listen 
to the story of the Memlook slaughter by the 
Basha in 1811. The chiefs were invited to a 
banquet in this fortress, and after being luxu- 
riously feasted and graciously dismissed, they 
found all the gates closed and themselves and 
their followers barricadoed in a cul de sac. At 
the given signal a murderous fire opened from 
unseen assailants, and five hundred of these 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



55 



proud and gorgeous, but infamous and hated 
soldiery, bit the dust; one alone escaped by- 
leaping the barrier, and plunging, horse and 
man, down the precipitous rampart : the horse 
was killed, but the rider saved his life and is, 
they say, living still. 

These Memlook troops were such a fatal ^in- 
cubus of turbulence, profligacy, and tyranny, 
that any government would have been justified 
in the adoption of summary measures ; but the 
mode pursued by Mohammad Ali is revolting 
to our western ideas of chivalry and fair play. 
The orientals, however, understand no such 
scruple; with them, the surest and safest way 
of destroying an enemy is deemed the wisest 
and best. The pride and strength of these for- 
midable horsemen never recovered from the 
steady-rolling death-dealing fire of the French 
infantry at the " Battle of the Pyramids." As 
individual soldiers, they were perhaps better 
mounted and armed than any opponents which 
Europe could bring against them; and their 
peculiar swordsmanship was both admired and 
dreaded by the French cavalry. They charged 
the hollow squares with a desperate courage, 
that would have ensured success had success 



56 



NOZRANI IN 



been possible. Each man carried his fortune 
about him in his arms and accoutrements ; and 
these, with the Cashmere shawls and embroi- 
dered silks, helped to enrich the French sol- 
diers, who used, as an old officer told me, to 
fish for Mcmlooks in the Nile days and weeks 
after their overthrow in the field. These mer- 
cenaries were principally of European blood, 
taken, bought, or stolen when children, always 
selected for strength and beauty. The corps 
was recruited and maintained by the same 
means. For two hundred years they exercised 
sovereign power, and, like the Praetorian bands, 
chose a sultan from their own ranks. They 
kept their ground from the thirteenth to the 
sixteenth century, when the Memlook Beys 
were compelled to yield uncertain obedience 
to the Turk. Their career of violence and in- 
famy was finally closed by the massacre in this 
citadel of Cairo. 

The Memlook dynasty forms one link in the 
chain of foreign powers, which, from the days 
of the Assyrian monarchy, have successively 
ruled the land of the Pharaohs. Nebuchadnez- 
zar 'and Cambyses, Alexander and the Ptolemies, 
the Roman and the Saracen, the Memlook and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



57 



the Turk, have followed each other in the rnov^- 
ing pageant of history; and now, the Basha 
against the Sultan, Turk against Turk, alien 
against alien, are playing the game for Egyp- 
tian sovereignty. But still ff no prince of the 
land of Egypt" rises to fill the throne; still "it 
is a base kingdom," " the basest of kingdoms" 
— " its sceptre has departed, and there shall be 
no more a prince of the land of Egypt," salth 
the prophet of the Lord ! 

Here is prophecy, the fulfilment of which, 
he who runs may read; and if it cannot be so 
read, surely the reading is not the true one. 
" No prophecy," says the Apostle, " is of private 
interpretation*." — "No prophecy can be ex- 
plained or understood, save by its fulfilment." 
Every speculation then upon prophecy, not 
clearly accomplished, falls to the ground, as the 
mere imagination of the heart of man. 

Feb. 24th to March 1st. Head quarters at 
the French house are not very disagreeable, 
barring those plagues of Egypt, which are not 

* u Nullum vaticinium ex se et per se explicari posse ? 
nisi vaticinium et eventus secum invicem comparentur, 
nec potest intelligi nisi ex eventu et historia." (Rosen- 
muller.) 



58 



NOZEANI IN 



peculiar to it; e. g., here as elsewhere the flies 
are in great force and of uncommon perseve- 
rance, — they will buzz in one's ears, and settle 
on one's nose, and crawl on one's forehead, in 
spite of all the whisking and flourishing of 
horse-tail flap and palm-leaf fan. The fleas hop 
and skip by myriads, but are not so vicious as 
in Europe; at any rate they are less noticed in 
this land of things creeping and hopping, innu- 
merable and abominable. The flies bite quite 
as sharply as the fleas, and take more pleasure 
in tormenting for tormenting's sake. There 
are also in close alliance with flies, fleas, bugs 
and *musquitoes, other confederates (liorresco 
refer ens) of whose amiable existence one is only 
made aware in cool and cloudy England through 
the medium of microscopes. 

The variety of crawling spiders, of all de- 
grees of ugliness up to the hideous, and of all 
mis-shapen sizes up to the circumference of a 
dollar, might interest an entomologist; but I 
know nothing of their characteristics, and, as 
they leave me unmolested, care nothing. The 
green and brown lizards, which run like light- 
ning upon the white-washed walls and rough- 
hewn rafters, are not be included among the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



59 



enemy's force ; on the contrary, listening to their 
click, click, as a friendly signal, one watches 
them with great satisfaction as they pounce 
upon the odious flies. A solitary scorpion may 
occasionally lurk in a dark corner, but, unless 
provoked, he readily beats a retreat. 

It is difficult to decide whether the donkeys 
or the dogs, make the more insufferable noise. 
Every house has a shed, in which dwells at 
least one of the first mentioned respectable, use- 
ful, and much-maligned race; but docile and 
enduring as they are, one cannot help losing 
all patience and all sympathy, under the exas- 
perating influence of one continued hee-haw 
chorus, from " morn to eve and eve to dewy 
morn/' The dogs are in one respect only half 
as bad, as they spend half their time in quiet 
sleep ; the barking, howling, and growling goes 
on chiefly at night; but then they fight so furi- 
ously among themselves, and are so evilly-dis- 
posed towards Frank strangers, that, taking 
them all in all, they are perhaps a greater 
nuisance than the asses. 

The police regulations kept up among the 
canine community are curious; each individual 
dog belongs to a society to which is allotted a 



60 



NOZEANI IN 



certain district, beyond which none stray or 
prowl without permission; and woe to the in- 
truder who is caught out of bounds — the hue 
and cry is up, and he runs the gauntlet for 
his life. Still, to give the dogs their due, they 
are, as joint scavengers with the jackals, very 
useful members of society, and are accordingly 
respected and well treated by the Mooslim po- 
pulation, though the touch of the unclean animal 
is held to be pollution, and carefully guarded 
against, even to the hem of the garment. 

The approach to our house is by the usual 
narrow lane, where the projecting lattices of 
the upper story almost meet. These lanes issue 
from streets somewhat broader, constituting the 
great thoroughfares of the city, from which 
they are separated by large wooden gates, 
closed at night, and guarded by porters wrap- 
ped in the hooded white-blanket Arab cloak, 
and before admission can be gained, the chal- 
lenge of these warders must be answered: 

" Wachhed Allah!" 

" Proclaim that God is one." 



Reply—" La illaha il Allah!" 

" There is no God but God. 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



61 



The zealous Mussulman may add — 
" Mohammad rasool Allah F 
"Mohammad is the Prophet of God." 

Of course the Christian has no scruple in 
pronouncing the first formula. (Mark xii. 29.) 
No one is allowed to walk after sunset without 
a lantern, usually made of transparent waxed 
cloth, which folds up flat between a top and 
bottom of thin copper or pasteboard. 

The streets of Cairo, if streets they may be 
called that are seldom more than six feet wide, 
are altogether unpaved; and to avoid intole- 
rable dust, the sackyehs or water-carriers are 
employed to sprinkle the contents of their drip- 
ping goat-skins, right and left, through every 
thoroughfare. If the aspersion be at all too 
liberal, the dry mud becomes a slippery, slimy 
paste, upon which man and beast, i. e. rider 
and donkey, are very apt to measure their 
length. The first stories of the houses are 
usually built of stone, striped alternately red 
and white; the upper part of sun-dried bricks*; 
the large projecting windows are of wooden 



* A heavy shower of rain would, and occasionally does 
bring down the inferior Cairo houses "with a run." 



62 



XOZRANI IN 



lattice-work, very variously and curiously 
worked, admitting sufficient air and light for 
those within, but effectually screening them 
from the observation of those without ; glass 
panes are seldom found and little needed in a 
climate where it scarcely ever rains, and where 
the winter temperature averages nearly 60°, 
The street doors are often highly ornamented 
with arched stone-work, the wood being painted 
red, green, and white, with the assertion of the 
Unity of the Deity inscribed in the centre in 
flowing black characters from the Koran. The 
entry to each house is usually guarded by a 
bow-wab or porter ; after propitiating this offi- 
cial, the visitor finds his way through a zig-zag 
passage (which baffles curious eyes from the 
street) into a court yard, upon which look the 
windows of the Hhareem, or women's apartment. 
The fair inmates often take up a position behind 
the lattices, where they see unseen; while 
various entertainments of dancing, music, sing- 
ing, and story-telling are frequently carried on 
below for their amusement. The great object 
of domestic architecture is to keep the Hhareem 
sacred from all intrusion and observation. 
Tables and chairs, as well as knives and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



63 



forks, are unknown in the households of Cairo. 
No orientals can abide our sitting posture; they 
either recline bodily upon ottoman cushions, or 
cross their legs under them in tailor fashion. 
The table is represented by a round copper 
tray upon a low stool, carried in and out when 
needed, and supplied by dishes succeeding each 
other singly. The guests, who are squatted 
round, help themselves with the fingers, 
always of the right hand, or with a spoon when 
required; and it is courtesy to offer a friend 
with finger and thumb anything that may pass 
for a delicacy. The dishes are not of a nature 
to require much carving; the principal mess 
being the pilaf of rice and boiled fowl, then 
minced meat, with abundant variety of stewed 
vegetables, the onion first and the cucumber 
second in precedence : nearly everything is 
strongly seasoned and spiced. Each person 
is furnished with a napkin; and when the 
repast is over, a slave pours water upon the 
hands. 

The orientals will not wash, if they can help 
it, in any but running water; thus, in the 
ablutions which precede and follow every meal, 
the water is poured from the pitcher over the 



64 



NOZEANI IN 



hands into a brass basin, having a perforated 
cover, through which it finds its way without 
offending the eyes of the scrupulous Mooslim. 
It is amusing as well as instructive to observe 
how the oriental retorts with interest upon the 
European, the charge of barbarism and indeli- 
cacy. Certain it is we must yield to them the 
palm of " cleansing the outside of the platter, 
and whiting sepulchres full of dead men^s bones 
and all uncleanness." 

The rule of contradiction seems to prevail 
between East and West wherever there is room 
to differ. I have somewhere seen a curious 
parallel of opposition which might be carried to 
an amusing length : e. g. they read and write 
from right to left, we from left to right ; — they 
shave the hair of the head and let beard and 
moustache grow, we let the hair of the head 
grow and shave both beard and moustache; — we 
take off our hats in church, they take off their 
shoes ; — we sit on chairs, they recline on cush- 
ions; — we eat with knife and fork, they prefer 
finger and thumb; — we dance with steps of the 
feet, they dance with gestures of the body; — 
our clothes are tight and buttoned, theirs loose 
and tied; — we calculate by the sun, they calcu- 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



65 



late by the moon ; — we ride with straight legs, 
they with knees up to the chin; — our necks are 
enveloped and heads bare, their necks are bare 
and heads enveloped ; — their code, abjuring 
wine, pork, and things strangled, permits poly- 
gamy ; our code, permitting wine, pork, and 
things strangled, abhors polygamy. Thus, in 
religion, morals, politics, literature, and life, 
we hate, despise, oppose, misunderstand, and 
misrepresent each other ! 

The popular amusements of the capital are 
of a very depraved character; the mountebank 
tricks and exhibitions often of the lowest and 
most infamous description — " a base land." In 
riding or walking through the city we are 
usually treated with civility, and our presence 
is always a signal for the best performance in 
dance and music, song and tale. The donkeys 
we ride are clean-limbed, quick-eyed, and small- 
headed, equipped with high morocco saddles 
and housings; the boys in charge drive them 
full canter through the crowded and narrow 
streets, shouting and yelling with all their 
might riglak! yemeenah! shemalak! and other 
cries, addressed alternately to rider, beast, and 
passenger. Every now and then we meet a 



66 



NOZRANI IN 



lofty camel, with a huge bale on either side 
filling up the whole street, and have to ma- 
noeuvre or retreat accordingly. The women 
as well as men ride upon asses, and present 
to a stranger very startling coffin-like figures, 
wrapped up from head to foot in black silk 
mantles and hoods, sitting astride upon huge 
lofty saddles, exalting their yellow-slippered 
feet to a level with the donkey's ears, and 
showing nothing of their own person or features 
but the large, dark, /^AZ-stained eyes that gaze 
grandly and calmly upon the despised infidel, 
from above the hem of the long white linen 
veil that descends from the top of the nose, and 
would reach to the feet if its folds did not rest 
upon the broad and lofty cushion which bears 
the fair lady's enveloped and mysterious form. 
The first impression is, that they must fall 
from their perilous height; but the fear soon 
vanishes. A turbaned and grave attendant 
walks by the side, and the donkey is sure-footed 
and securely girthed. 

The aspect of the principal streets is full of 
eastern life, and an artist would be delighted 
with admirable studies of oriental feature and 
costume. Here, the venerable white beard and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 67 

noble countenance of an old sheyk^ who might 
pass for Father Abraham himself; and there, 
the flashing eye of the Bedouin Arab, with the 
wild grace and ferocity of the outcast Ishmael 
— the free denizen of the desert — "his hand 
against every man, and every man's hand 
against him." The bazaars are piled with 
costly merchandize, separately arranged, one 
for cloth, another for shoes, a third for sabres, 
a fourth for jewellery, and so on. Articles of 
value, such as Cashmere shawls and Damascus 
blades, are paraded through the crowd by a 
crier or auctioneer, who receives the various 
offers, and at last assigns the purchase to the 
highest bidder. Very great importance is 
attached to the temper of steel, and large sums 
are given for favourite swords. An effendee, 
or gentleman, usually wears a richly embossed 
scabbard of silver gilt, and all classes are fond 
of sticking long pistols in their silk girdles; 
but the locks are luckily less subjected to scru- 
tiny than the ornamented butts and barrels, 
and many an ill-intentioned pull on a trigger is 
happily thwarted by an innocent flash in the 
pan, or probably no flash at all, the hammer and 
pan, by the benevolent foresight of the Lyons 

F 2 



68 



NOZRANI IN 



manufacturer, not being designed for collision 
and explosion. 

My Arab servant summoned me on Thursday 
to see a grand marriage procession marching 
through the streets. The poor little bride, a 
mere child in years, enveloped from head to 
foot in crimson veils and shawls, not even her 
eyes visible, walking under a rich silken canopy 
supported by tall bearers, and a deluge of rose- 
water dashed over her to keep her from swoon- 
ing with heat and fatigue; she is supported by 
matron ladies in the usual black silk wrappers 
and white linen veils — nothing seen but the 
points of their yellow slippers, the tips of their 
hhemia-dyed nails pink as "the rosy-fingered 
morn," and the wondrous dark eyes of Egypt, 
their soft lustre enhanced by the stain of the 
black kohl, a pigment applied under the lash 
of the lower lid — a fashion as old as the pyra- 
mids, for glass bottles of the dye are found 
in the ancient mummy pits. The procession 
is headed by the usual music — the famous tattoo 
of the Darabooheh, the shrill squeak of the fife, 
and the joyous jingle of the tambourine; with 
ever and anon the women's shrill quavering 
quivering cry of the Zugghareet, a most pecu- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



69 



liar, and to European organs, inimitable sound, 
apparently produced by a very rapid tremulous 
vibration of the tongue against the roof of the 
mouth, which causes a prolonged note, so wild 
and yet so sweet, that once heard it can never 
be forgotten. Half-naked wrestlers, sword- 
players, and buffoons exert themselves in ho- 
nour of the occasion; several boys, very richly 
dressed and mounted upon noble horses led by 
the rein, were pointed out to me, preceding the 
bridal parade, previously to the rite of circum- 
cision, which is still of Mohammadan obligation. 
It seems that Thursday and Sunday are the 
two days appointed for the various ceremonies 
which precede matrimony; and these ceremo- 
nies are by no means of light or easy endurance 
to the happy couple, if happy they can be 
called, who never meet or see each other till 
the knot is tied, — -by no means, however, indis- 
solubly, as divorce is a very summary process, 
and, as may be supposed, of frequent occur- 
rence. The procession, or ziffeh, of the bride 
occupies many hours, parading the principal 
streets; and it is not till the evening of the 
second day that she is conducted to the home 
of her husband, who, poor man, has been suffer- 



70 



NOZRANI IN 



ing his full share of the marchings drumming, 
and pipings with the nightly addition of epitha- 
lamium hymns, blazing fires, and waving 
torches carried before him. The first day's 
march is called the Procession of the Bath, 
from its principal incident; the second, the 
Procession of the Bride, as it leads her to, and 
leaves her with, the expectant bridegroom. 
For details on these and all other matters con- 
nected with modern Egypt, Lane's two volumes 
in the (c Library of Entertaining Knowledge" 
are indispensable and invaluable. 



PYRAMIDS. 

March 1st to Sth. Make preparations with 
my American friend for a week's excursion to 
the Pyramids, hiring a camel for our tent and 
baggage, and three hhomars for ourselves and 
Arab servant, dark Hassan — a handsome, active, 
richly-dressed, and accomplished fellow, talking 
a very amusing but sufficiently intelligible 
farrago of Arabic, lingua Franca, and English: 
he himself always maintains an imperturbable 
gravity, his glittering eyes half closed; a habit 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



71 



common to all the natives, to protect them from 
the glare of the sand and sun. 

As the hot weather is approaching, we adopt 
Hassan's advice, and pay a visit to a barber, 
who very neatly and expeditiously shaves our 
heads according to the fashion of the country, 
following up the operation with a smothering 
deluge of soap-suds, rubbed and scrubbed till 
we cry for mercy, when we are dismissed from 
under the hands of our energetic eastern 
Figaro with a plentiful libation of delicious 
rose-water, and Hassan cases our polished and 
perfumed pates in the close-fitting tackeejeh 3 
or cotton skull-cap, covered and surmounted 
by the lofty scarlet cloth turboosh, with its 
waving tassel of blue silk, requiring only a 
fold of muslin to constitute a turban complete* 
The coolness and comfort of our change of 
head-gear fully bears out Hassan, and we 
commission him to complete the work by 
equipping us in white calico jackets and wide 
trowsers, a la Turque, with broad sashes of 
silk twisted half a dozen times round the 
waist, which is accomplished by posting your 
servant at one end of the room, with one 
extremity of the sash held tight, and yourself 



72 



NOZRANI IX 



at the other end of the room, with the other 
extremity of the sash held close; and then, 
like Moliere's bourgeois gentilhomme, who is 
robed to the sound of music, you approach 
your valet with a slow waltzing step, and find 
yourself, on reaching him, tightly and securely 
girthed, with a sensation of well-braced sup- 
port, for a tonic to mind and body. 

Having adopted the turboosh and shaved our 
heads, we are henceforth freed from the 
penance of shaving lip and chin; an infliction 
which, in this country and climate, one is 
happy to escape. A visit to the sabre bazaar 
completes our equipment: and thus, delighted 
with the novelty and coolness of our costume, 
we prepare for the Pyramids, — not without a 
slight misgiving, for though no one can pos- 
sibly mistake us for Mussuhnen, we can scarcely 
lay claim to the aspect of Christians. 

Hassan lays in good stock of rice, coffee, 
dates, maccaroni, sugar, salt, lemons, and rum, 
which being stored in a wicker kafass, a kind 
of basket for such purpose, formed of palm 
branch or leaf, we set forth on our way re- 
joicing. It may be remarked en passant of 
the palm, that it is the universal, the provi- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 73 

dential, and nearly the only tree that Egypt 
produces. Everything that can be made of 
wood is here made of palm wood — beams, bed 
frames, bed stuffings, baskets, mats, ropes, fly- 
flaps, &c., &e. The camel is not more essential 
to the Bedouin, nor the reindeer to the Lap- 
lander, than the palm tree to the Egyptian, and 
its fruit affords him nutritious and never- 
failing food. The Basha levies a tax upon 
the tree, which, judging by the immense 
groves throughout his dominions, must con- 
tribute considerably to his annual revenue, 
which they say is between two and three 
millions sterling. 

On reaching Old Cairo, about two miles 
from our quarters and on the banks of the 
river, we are overtaken and surprised by the 
first gust of a khamseen wind, which seldom 
blows so early in the season. The word sig- 
nifies fifty; and the wind is so called because 
during a period of about fifty days in April 
and May it may be looked for at intervals, 
prevailing for twenty-four to forty-eight hours 
at a time. It comes from the south and south- 
west, across the African desert, bringing clouds 
of hot, fiery-looking sand, cracking and parch- 



74 



NOZEAJTI IN 



ing all it breathes upon, — intolerably oppres- 
sive to man and beast. "We find the Nile 
so rough with the gale, that no boat "will 
venture out, three lives having been lost during 
the day; so after some difficulty we at length 
gain shelter under the roof of a Syrian mer- 
chant, who allots us a large upper chamber 
at twenty piastres for the night: truth com- 
pelling us to acknowledge we are not married, 
forms an insuperable obstacle to our being re- 
ceived at any of the native houses to which 
we applied. The family of our entertainer 
consists of an old lady duenna, enormously 
fat, and not kept together by the stays and 
supports we could desire. She is closely fol- 
lowed by her two negress slaves, who forget 
their mistress and their duty, to stare and 
laugh at us with all their eyes and teeth. The 
news of our arrival was probably not long in 
reaching another member of the family of a 
more interesting appearance — no less a person 
than the lady of the Hliareem — into whose 
presence we are ushered during the afternoon, 
with some appearance of management and 
mystery. She is a young Circassian, very 
fair, with large dark eyes, brown hair, and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 75 

eyebrows finely pencilled. She receives us 
sitting or rather reclining on ottoman cushions; 
we drink coffee from little cups in gold filagree 
cases, eat sweetmeats from perfumed boxes, 
and the slaves pour rose-water on our fingers, 
while the lady dons various shawls and jewels, 
and makes us take off her head-dress of gold 
spangles, like a comet's tail, and feel the 
weight and count the number of the gold 
coins attached. We in return show our 
watches, telescopes, and pencil-cases; present 
the fair dame with a pair of scissors and a 
dozen or two of pins and needles; and having 
made our bow and exchanged civil speeches, 
which are appreciated though not understood, 
we take our departure, trusting in the good 
generalship of the ladies for not meeting our 
Syrian host, their lord and master, whom we 
heartily wish as much happiness as the undis- 
turbed possession of his pretty little silly wife 
can ensure. 

Visit the ancient Coptic church of Santa 
Maria and San Georgio, upon entering which 
we take off our shoes, and walk in yellow 
morocco slippers on palm-leaf matting. The 
walls are daubed with various pictures of grim 



76 



NOZRANI IN 



and ugly saints; but the Copts, like the 
Greeks, admit no image nor high relief cast- 
ing a shadow. The whole church is screened 
and curtained off into parallel compartments, 
reminding one of the arrangement of the four 
orders of Penitents in the primitive time 
(Flentes, Audientes, Prostrati, and Consistentes), 
The officiating priests alone enter within the 
painted panels and cross-embroidered tapestry 
that conceal the altar; the deacons and acolytes 
stand outside, chanting a sort of targum in 
Arabic, being an explanation of and com- 
mentary on the Coptic service, celebrated by 
the concealed priest inside the pale, though he 
himself is said not to understand the old lan- 
guage much better than the congregation, who 
do not understand it at all. The chanting is 
like the Jewish, and the Jewish not unlike the 
Mohammedan, 

The Holy Sacrament is administered to the 
clergy only in both kinds, and the bread is in 
the form of unleavened wafers; but whether 
they hold transubstantiation or not, we had 
no means of learning. Auricular confession is 
practised, and the censer and frankincense used, 
as in the Roman church. Coptic and Arabic 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



77 



Bibles and Liturgies lie upon lecterns before 
the screen of the high altar. The people do not 
kneel or sit, but worship leaning like Jacob 
"upon the top of a staff." The fasts are said 
to be frequent and severe. 

According to Lane, the Coptic population in 
Egypt amounts to about a hundred and fifty 
thousand, a number yearly diminished by rene- 
gades, who embrace the dominant faith of El- 
Islam. The Copts are considered true descen- 
dants of the ancient race of Egypt, and still 
show the thick lips, straight noses, broad fore- 
heads, and elongated eyes with which we are 
familiar in everlasting granite; but the same 
observation applies in great measure to the 
people in general. The distinguishing mark 
of the Copt is, a black or dark-coloured robe 
and turban, a badge of inferiority to the Moos- 
lim, who alone claims green and white as the 
sacred colours, which are his by prerogative of 
race. St. Mark the Evangelist is the patron 
saint of the Egyptian Christians; but they lost 
the sacred relics (his dust and ashes) when the 
Venetians, gaining possession of them in the 
ninth century, transported them to the Lagunes, 
and built over them (so runs the story) the 



78 



XOZEAXI IN 



noble cathedral which still stands upon the far- 
famed piazza. The legend of the church of 
Santa Maria is connected with our Lord's flight 
into Egypt; and we are shown the cavern 
which offered an asylum to the " young Child 
and His mother." 

The dry wind at sunset is still "blowing 
sand through an egg-shell" (Arabic proverb); 
we pass a restless night, tormented with many 
plagues, which at last drive me out in despair 
upon the flat roof, to find, after an hour or 
two's oblivion, that the gale is stilled and 
the moon shining brightly upon the broad 
and placid Nile, on which, tall white sails are 
gliding in silvery light, and beyond the river 
rise the dark stupendous masses of the pyra- 
mids, flinging their deep shadows far into the 
moonlit desert. It is three hours beyond mid- 
night, and the cry of the Moocddin peals 
through the dead stillness of the morning 
watch — Ashadoo annah la illaha il Allah : " I 
protest there is no God but God." Alas ! that 
this noble profession of the Truth should not 
end here; it would then at least be nothing 
but the Truth, though not the ivhole Truth as 
declared in Jesus Christ. Alas ! that Moham- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



79 



mad should still mingle with Allah, and ring so 
loud and clear to greet the rising sun with a lie. 
But yet the God whose unity they assert has 
declared, that " in every nation he that feareth 
Him and worketh righteousness shall be accepted 
with Him;" that that alone will be demanded 
which is given — 6i much to whom much/' " less 
to whom less." Meanwhile a voice whispers, 
"What is that to thee ? follow thou Me ;" and 
" may it please Him to bring into the way of 
truth all such as have erred and are deceived/' 
a clause which comprehends the genus homo. 

Bidding adieu to our Syrian friends, we see 
the camel and asses safe across the river, and 
return half way to land on the island of Rodah, 
where Moses was found in the rushes by Pha- 
raoh's daughter. Here stands the old Saracenic 
Nilometer, an edifice of some architectural pre- 
tension in what we call the Gothic, but which 
might perhaps be more aptly termed the Arabic 
or Moorish style, if, as seems probable, it came 
to us through Spain. The graduated stone pil- 
lar and steps are intended for the official read- 
ing off of the Nile's rise, upon the due degree 
of which depends the hope of Egypt's harvest; 
agriculture and irrigation being here convert- 



80 



NOZRAXI IN 



ible terms. The river begins to swell in the 
neighbourhood of the capital about the middle 
of June, and reaches its highest level towards 
the end of September : a rise of sixteen cubits, 
or twenty-four feet, is the consummation for 
which millions offers prayers to heaven; and, 
when these prayers are granted, a cry of joy 
and jubilee is heard from Syene to the sea; the 
public announcement is solemnized with all the 
pomp of national festivity, and, amid the thun- 
dering of cannon, the blaze of fireworks, and, far 
grander than either, the spontaneous Te Deum of 
the people, couriers are despatched to speed the 
news from Cairo to Stamboul. The acme of 
the festival is cutting the dam of the canal, 
through which the yellow turbid waters of 
the Nile roll their dust-devouring way into the 
parched and smoking plain of the Esbekeeyeh; 
and those only who have breathed the impal- 
pable powder of Egypt's summer-soil, can ap- 
preciate the magic creation of a broad and 
buoyant lake in the midst of the thirsty city. 

Before leaving the western bank of the river, 
we crawl and grope through the subterranean 
egg-hatching establishment of Grhizeh, handling 
hot addled eggs and unfledged precarious chick- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



81 



ens, in as foul a smelling medium of heat, dust 
and darkness as ever human lungs inhaled. The 
temperature is about 105° of Fahrenheit ; and 
success depends greatly upon its equable main- 
tenance, for which the manager trusts to his 
own perception, neither having nor requiring 
any other thermometer. The chicks usually 
break the shell at the end of twenty days or 
less, the eggs being duly turned and manipu- 
lated by the superintendents. They say that 
about fifty millions of eggs are annually sent to 
the different establishments in Lower and Upper 
Egypt; nearly half the number are spoiled, 
and perhaps one-third of the chickens die, 
though petted and nursed with great tender- 
ness by ladies to whom they are sent. The re- 
quired heat is maintained by the slow-burning 
camel-dung fuel of the country ; and the power 
of human endurance and adaptation to circum- 
stance, could scarcely find a better illustration 
than in the person of the director of this stifling, 
subterranean, artificial poultry-rearing institu- 
tion, whose hot-house nurslings however, as 
might be expected, are scarcely a match for the 
legitimate offspring of dame Nature's primeval 
brooding and clucking. 

a 



82 



NOZRAjNT in 



A ride of four or five miles, across fertile 
corn fields, annually overflown, brings us under 
the shadow of the pyramids; but long before 
arriving we are beset by a posse of Arab guides 
running alongside, yelling and squabbling with 
each other, as Arabs only can yell and squabble, 
but patting us on the back in a patronizing 
way, alternately bragging and coaxing about 
Belzoni and Baksheesh; the latter shibboleth 
answering to the French pour boire and the 
German trink-geld, but for which, in English, 
we have no name equally definite, though the 
thing be well understood. Felhos is money, 
and Baksheesh a present; and a countryman 
of ours had sufficient reason for his new read- 
ing of the Aj:ab creed, — " There is no God 
but Felloos, and Baksheesh is his prophet." 
These noisy gentry are licensed by the govern- 
ment to act as pyramid-guides, and no traveller 
may dispense with the attendance of one or 
more of them: they are responsible for the 
safety of European visitors, who have conse- 
quently nothing to apprehend, though the first 
onset of the sinewy savages might almost justify 
a little bodily fear. With the assistance of our 
numerous guard, we soon pitch the tent, and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 83 

establish our household upon Colonel Vyse's 
rock,— the Hotel sans faqon ; water is soon 
fetched — a fire quickly blazes — -and as the sun 
goes down, Hassan as major-domo, followed by 
a brace of our new allies, makes his appear- 
ance, bearing a small mountain of smoking rice 
and chicken, with toasted bread and maccaroni- 
cheese ad libitum, followed by a dessert of dates 
and a bowl of punch ; with which, sitting in 
patriarchal fashion at the door of our tent, while 
the cool shadows of the pyramids are flung far 
and wide upon the sand, we drink " the Priva- 
tions of the Desert." A party of Arabs, sent 
up by the sheyh of a neighbouring village, lie 
round the tent, wrapped in the burnoos or white 
woollen hooded cloak, which makes them look 
when their backs are turned like Carthusian 
monks of Saint Bruno. When tired of telling 
long stories and howling dismal songs, which 
resemble the lamentations of a beaten hound, 
they watch and snore by turns for the night : 
not that I believe the vigils to have interfered 
with the slumbers of our sentinels ; for when 
we went out to ramble in midnight meditation 
under the shade of Cephrenes, they were all as 
fast asleep as Mr. Puff's sentries when looking 

g2 



84 



NOZRAKI IK 



for the Spanish Armada. The only wakeful 
watch was a hooting owl perched upon the top 
of our tent pole, "most musical, most melan- 
choly," staring at brilliant Aldebaran, as the 
glorious star rose glittering on the dark point 
of Cheops' pyramid. 

The hoot of that bird — "no joyful yoice" — 
is the only sound that now disturbs a night 
solitary as that which looked so dark to the 
mournful spirit of J ob, when he w opened his 
mouth and cursed the night in which it was 
said, There is a man child conceiyed." And 
surely these must be the " desolate places built 
for themselves by kings and counsellors of the 
earth," with whom the man of Uz would fain 
ec haye lain still, been quiet, have slept, and 
been at rest" (Job iii.) even "with princes that 
had gold and who filled their houses with sil- 
ver." If these pyramids be indeed the tombs 
and treasure-houses of kings and counsellors 
of the earth, they are still as dark, silent, vast, 
and desolate as when the weary §oul of the 
patriarch brooded upon their image, as shadow- 
ing the last dreary home " where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and where the weary are 
at rest !" 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



85 



A gorgeous sunrise over the mountains of 
Mookatam, lighting up a far-extended view of 
the valley of Egypt, with Cairo and its thou- 
sand pinnacles trembling in a dancing dusky 
mirage beyond the river, which winds its sil- 
ver green-embroidered course through a wide 
waste of golden glaring sand. 

Hassan's breakfast does him no less credit 
than his dinner, and we render equal justice 
to both ; sitting down under the shade of our 
rock to a pile of hot toast and butter, with 
fresh eggs, rich boiling goat's milk, and the 
most fragrant of Mokah coffee, with the de- 
lightful anticipation of a long day's scramble 
in and on and over the mighty and mysterious 
mountains, reared, no one knows how or when 
or why, by the handiwork of " men that were 
of old, men of renown," but whose renown 
cannot pierce the darkness or traverse the dis- 
tance of three thousand years; no, nor half 
three thousand, for Herodotus, B.C. 400, knew 
no more than we do ; all he could learn was, 
that they were built "lang syne," but by whom, 
neither priests nor people could tell, any more 
than the shepherds on Salisbury Plain can now 
tell who built Stonehenge. 



86 



NOZBAtfl IS" 



Our first expedition is to the top of the 
great pyramid of Cheops; standing upon lower 
ground than that of Cephrenes, but in itself 
somewhat loftier, the perpendicular height is 
about five hundred feet, and its base said to 
equal the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields, follow- 
ing the line of houses; the material is lime- 
stone, much worn and shaken by time and 
violence; the steps, i. e. the successive layers or 
tiers of massive blocks which constitute the 
pyramid, are not less than two feet high, and 
require what the French call a Ion jarret to 
ascend without assistance, which is however 
always at hand; my friend and myself being 
obliged to show much energy in our determi- 
nation to trust to our own legs, for our Arab 
satellites, urged in their zeal for the service 
by inordinate love of baksheesh, and, skipping 
like chamois on a mountain, encumbered with 
little garment expressible or inexpressible, were 
resolutely bent on lifting, dragging, and shoving 
us up the steep, after a fashion which was 
anything but dignified, though doubtless very 
safe. Two blue-robed bare-footed little dam- 
sels, with porous earthen pitchers of delicious 
water from the K" ile, were far more gentle and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



87 



welcome auxiliaries, and the u baksheesh" mo- 
destly murmured and fairly earned, was an 
appeal from the gazelle-eyed maidens too just 
and powerful to be resisted. Pausing half way 
on the tremendous slope, we looked up and 
looked down the piled mountain above and 
below us with a feeling of awe approaching to 
dread, though the footing is broad enough to 
ensure safety to any one not cursed with a 
very topsj r -turvy imagination; but here we 
shudder at the thought of the Englishman, 
who missing his hold on the first step, fell, 
rolled and bounded, a bloody, bruised, and bro- 
ken mummy, down that Brobdignagian stair- 
case. This of course is a grand story for the 
guides, and, whether true or not, produces its 
impression then and there; his friend saw him 
stumble, caught the last glare of agony from 
his starting eye-balls, and heard the shriek of 
despair as the clutched fingers grasped and lost 
their hold upon the stone. An order has since 
been issued, that no stranger shall climb the 
pyramids unattended by Arab guides. 

Reaching the summit of the pyramid, we 
throw ourselves on its rugged pavement, hot, 
thirsty, breathless, after a neck and neck 



88 



NOZRAKT IX 



race up the last hundred steps, each nearly a 
yard high ; but the dewy pitcher is at hand, 
we drink a deep cold draught of the Nile's 
sweet water, inhale the fresh elastic breeze of 
the desert, five hundred feet above its level, 
and then gaze north, south, east, west, in 
long involuntary silence. The apex of the 
pyramid, which from a distance looks like a 
sharp point, is now a broad area nearly ten 
yards every way; its massive stone blocks, bro- 
ken and displaced, are covered with names of 
travellers, ancient and modern, from all nations 
of the world, and we of course add our own to 
the number. 

North, we look down the river, expanding 
into the broad Delta of Egypt, with its green 
plains, brown villages, and groves of palm. 
South, we look up the river, contracting its 
channel into the narrow valley of Egypt, still 
with green fields and groves of palm, but 
walled in with barriers of steep and lofty cliffs 
ten miles asunder. East, we look across the 
river upon the domes and minarets of Cairo, 
bounded by barren rocks and backed by the 
wilderness of Arabia. West, is the African 
Zaharah, backed by nothing and bounded by 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



89 



nothing but its own trembling horizon. Sand, 
dry, flat, and hot — sand, glarings blinding, and 
burning— sand, dreary, trackless, and lifeless ! 
Thou dread wilderness, thou wide-spread deso- 
lation, thou " Terra domibus negata," simoom- 
swept Desert! art not thou in truth a dead sea, 
a mare mortuum, a boundless Bahr-bela-ma, an 
ocean accursed, dried up, scorched, and with- 
ered ? and " are not the channels of thy waters 
seen at the rebuke, and discovered at the blast- 
ing of the breath of the Lord's displeasure?" 
(Psalm xviii.) 

At our feet is a city of the ancient dead — 
the Necropolis of Memphis— the burial-place 
of Noph — the "desolate places of her kings 
and counsellors"— lofty pyramids, subterranean 
galleries, square mummy pits, and granite 
sarcophagi ! One cannot look down from this 
height upon the mummy pits, many now bro- 
ken and rifled, without thinking that each of 
those squares so clearly marked on the sand 
must once have been the base of a pyramid, 
and that each pyramid was thus the monument 
of a tomb containing perhaps many dead. No- 
thing more probable than the destruction of 
these pyramids for the sake of their material ; 



90 



KOZEANI IN 



even the gigantic mass on which we now stand 
has only been saved, with its mighty brethren, 
by the passive resistance of its own ponderous 
strength. The present Basha, like a true Turk, 
was contemplating a few years since a renewed 
attack, and was only deterred from the attempt 
by European remonstrance. 

Of all the huge pyramids that we see rear- 
ing their heads to the south, still keeping their 
ground from Ghizeh to Faioum, pyramids of 
Abousir, Sahara, and Dashoor, none have es- 
caped mutilation and violence; what more likely 
then, if these regal monsters have only escaped, 
that a whole host of the smaller fry should 
have perished outright, and that the mighty me- 
tropolis, the ancient Memphis, Moph, or Noph, 
for many centuries buried her " counsellors" 
as well as "kings" in the "desolate places" 
on the edge of the wilderness bathed by the 
Nile's flood, marking the place of rest with 
these time-resisting structures, that stand so 
firmly on earth and point so steadily to hea- 
ven? There seems no doubt whatever that 
the pyramids were once cased in polished mar- 
ble, and that the rough broken layers of lime- 
stone which their sides now expose to view. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



91 



were only intended as rude beds for a more 
valuable and highly wrought material. Hero- 
dotus, writing of this great pyramid more than 
two thousand years ago., tells us " that Cheops 
ordered stone to be brought from the quarries 
of Arabia;" certainly not common stone. He 
speaks of these stones as being "highly po- 
lished and admirably jointed, none of them 
less than thirty feet long." Nothing can be 
clearer than his description of the mode of 
building. "This pyramid/' he says, "was 
first constructed after the fashion of steps, and 
when completed so far, the remaining stones 
were raised up by machines made of short 
wooden logs, by which the blocks were raised 
from the ground on to the first step; and so 
on from the first to the second, and the second 
to the third, till they reached the top, there be- 
ing as many machines as steps; and thus they 
completed the top first, and gradually worked 
their way downwards to the base, which was 
finished last." (Herodotus II. 125.) All this 
is clear enough, and shows that the external 
casing of marble was as it were dove-tailed into 
the rough limestone notches or steps, which are 
now stripped of their beautiful smooth covering, 



92 



NOZRANI IN 



though patches of cement and splinters of 
marble still adhere in the cracks and crevices; 
and Cephrenes' pyramid (the second in size) is 
still coated with an even bed of mortar for 
nearly one-third of its height from the top, 
which renders it difficult and dangerous of 
ascent, 

Pliny informs us that the peasants of a neigh- 
bouring village were famed for their skill in 
climbing these pyramids, an achievement which 
any active old lady might have accomplished 
in an hour, had the sides been cut into steps, 
even though inconveniently high for short legs; 
but it must have been a daring and desperate 
enterprise to scale the steep, smooth, shining, 
slippery sides of these stupendous masses^ and 
one that deserved recording even at the hands 
of Pliny. Diodorus, in the Augustan age, 
speaks of the great pyramid as still uninjured, 
and built (as he supposed, though really only 
cased) with Arabian marble. 

Great discrepancies exist in the various mea- 
surements of height and breadth, but these are 
not very difficult to reconcile when we find 
that the disagreement consists in a gradual de- 
crease as we approach nearer modern times, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



93 



owing no doubt to the very obvious fact of the 
constantly increasing accumulation of sand at 
the base, which of course diminishes equally 
and simultaneously both the height and breadth 
exposed to view. Thus Herodotus, the most 
ancient of the classic historians, makes the 
height of the great pyramid equal to its breadth 
at the square base, viz., eight plethra, or eight 
hundred feet. (Lib. II. 124.) This measure- 
ment is corroborated by Strabo, who, five hun- 
dred years later, tells us " that nearly in the 
middle of one of the sides is a moveable stone, 
which, when taken away, reveals a sloping pas- 
sage leading to the cell, — " o~vpij^ aicdXia fie^pt 
1 r V 9 0 V k V s." (Lib. XVII. 33.) Now this 
moveable stone has been removed, and the pas- 
sage is discovered; but it is very far from being 
half way up the side, probably not one third of 
the distance from the sand to the summit; and 
this reconciles Strabo with Herodotus, though 
the geographer makes the height but one sta- 
dium, six hundred and twenty-five feet, one 
hundred and seventy-five feet less than the 
respectable old historian, who, however much 
laughed at and called in question, in the long 
run generally turns the laugh upon his ques- 



94 



NOZEANI IN 



tioners and impugners. The sand no doubt 
was the cause of difference^ and both were 
right in their own day, though that day is 
now gone for both; and both are wrong, as 
the modern measurement is reduced to about 
five hundred feet, more or less. And if wind 
and sand are allowed to take their own course, 
they will, like Lear's two daughters, still re- 
duce and pare and nibble, till at last we shall 
have no pyramids at all, though not yet awhile. 
To restore then the pristine glory and gran- 
deur of the pyramids, we must suppose them 
disinterred from the sandy grave in which they 
now stand nearly up to their middle, and don 
them resplendent robes of shining white Arabian 
marble, smooth and polished from the base to 
the apex; the base being eight hundred feet 
every way, and the point or apex being also 
eight hundred feet above the sand of the de- 
sert. Remember that the cross of St. PauPs 
is about three hundred and fifty feet above the 
churchyard, and we have a fair standard of 
comparison wherewith to measure this seventh 
wonder of the world. 

The old hypothesis of Lincoln's Inn Fields 
filled up with a solid mass of masonry, tower- 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



95 



ing to a point half as high again as St. Paul's 
Cathedral, seems then to fall short of the pro- 
bable truth ; we must extend the area fifty feet 
every way, and imagine the pyramid rising 
perpendicularly eight hundred feet, nearly 
twice the height of St. Peter's of Rome, and 
on a level with the summit of Arthur's Seat, 
the mountain that overhangs Edinburgh, a 
land-mark for many a league on the German 
ocean. 

While we are measuring and speculating 
and reading the old Halicarnassian on Cheops 5 
top, our Arab attendants, weary of waiting our 
learned leisure, are amusing themselves with 
various gymnastic feats, to the honour and glory 
of which neither my friend nor myself being 
insensible, we try running-jump, standing-jump, 
hop-step-and-jump, leap-frog, and follow-your- 
leader, with various issue of defeat and victory ; 
though perhaps a candid confession might 
admit, that we civilized representatives of the 
old and new world were no match for wiry, 
sinewy, supple savages, qualified to wriggle 
through the spokes of a fireman's ladder. 

The descent of the pyramid, leaping from 
stone to stone, many of them rough and broken 



96 



NOZRANI IN 



and a yard high; more or less, is quite as 
fatiguing as the climbing up ; the eye too is 
apt to wander down the piled mountain with 
a peculiar fascination, which, if indulged in 
long, might end as once ended the tragic and 
well-known expedition of Jack and Jill. 

We tried to count the layers or steps, but 
our numbers did not agree. There are some- 
what more than two hundred, say two hun- 
dred and ten, averaging about thirty inches in 
height, being by no means equal, and in many 
places broken down. The regularity of these 
stone tiers made no part of the architect's plan, 
as they were never intended to be seen. If 
they were still covered with their smooth gay 
coating, neither we nor anybody else, but the 
villagers of Busiris, would ever have reached 
the summit ; or, having reached it, would ever 
have come down alive. How it makes one's 
blood thrill to think of the slide ! 

Our next adventure is to dive into the inte- 
rior of Cheops, " ^XP L TY l s Oyxvs" " as f ar 
as the cell," that Strabo talks of, by a pas- 
sage on the northern face, opening at a height 
of about a hundred feet or more from the sand, 
and sloping downwards at an angle of thirty 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



97 



degrees or so. This passage is lined with huge 
blocks of polished granite from Syene, and we 
grope our way through it in alternate torch- 
light and darkness — the alternation of darkness 
visible and darkness palpable; the nasty bats 
flapping in our faces, with dust and heat abo- 
minable and intolerable. I am very much of 
opinion with the Roman Emperor, who decli- 
ned going underground as long as it was 
optional to remain above. It requires a good 
deal of antiquarian enthusiasm to feel much 
interest or eagerness while grubbing and 
scrambling in these passages, unless it be an 
eagerness, like Sterne's starling, to get out 
However, scorning to cry craven, we stumble 
on with all due perseverance, and visit the 
King's chamber, and the Queen's chamber, 
and Lord Nelson's chamber, and sundry other 
chambers. The King's sanctum has a large 
sarcophagus at one end, and is about forty feet 
long and nearly twenty in height and breadth, 
the walls lined with shining granite. Presently 
we come to a stand-still in a dark corner, where 
a torch at length shows us a ladder, by which 
we are expected and exhorted to mount into 
some more chambers, which we ultimately do, 

H 



98 



NOZRANI IjST 



notwithstanding the "hiatus valde deflendus" 
of several spokes ; however, by clinging to one 
and clawing at another, we gain the topmost 
round, and enter two more chambers, — Ar- 
buthnot's chamber and Campbell's chamber, 
so called we suppose from the discoverers. 

Having thus done our duty in seeing and 
doing all that is usually seen and done, we are 
glad to emerge from the mouldering dust and 
sepulchral darkness of this huge, gloomy, and 
portentous monument of human vanity and 
vexation, this 

" Monstrum liorrendum inform' ingens cui lumen 
ademptum," 

into the pure light and fresh air of heaven and 
earth, which it is surely folly, if not wickedness, 
to forego even for an hour, while we are per- 
mitted to breathe the one and behold the other. 
Who, that may still rejoice in light and life, 
w T ould of his own will plunge into darkness and 
death ? 

"Hail, holy light! * * * 

* * ' * Before the sun, 

Before the heavens thou wert ; and at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest 

The rising world of waters, dark and deep, 

Won from the .void and formless infinite." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



99 



The second pyramid of Cephrenes is twin 
brother to the first or great pyramid of Cheops. 
Strabo places them both among the seven won- 
ders of the world. Wonderful they assuredly 
are — strange, surpassing strange, and one as 
strange as the other ! They must have been 
once beautiful, of perfect proportion and 
resplendent material ; sublime they still are in 
their mighty and mysterious mass time-worn, 
time-honoured, rearing their giant forms, and 
flinging their dark shadows from the sun and 
moon in " desolate places," for three of the six 
thousand years that have rolled away since 
" the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living soul." 
Here they still stand, the work of the hands of 
mighty men of old ; and here they may per- 
chance stand till the stream of Time runs itself 
out into the ocean of Eternity. 

" Then, like the "baseless fabric of a vision, 

* * -55- # *- 

These solemn temples and the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like an unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind." 

What may be said of Cheops may be safely 

h2 



100 



NOZRANI IN 



said of Cephrenes, but it might not be very 
safe to say it twice, so we say no more of either; 
but heartily hoping, in oriental phrase, that 
" their shadows may never be less, !5 we dismiss 
them both with an equal tribute — 

" Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum." 

Strabo tells a pretty nursery story as to the 
origin of the third pyramid, which is much 
smaller than the other two : " Once upon a time 
when the beautiful Rhodope was bathing in a 
river, an eagle came and snatched a sandal from 
her hand, and, carrying it off to Memphis, flew 
round the king's head as he sat upon his throne, 
and dropped the slipper into his lap. The king, 
astonished at the adventure and delighted with 
the shoe, sent messengers all over his dominions 
to find out the lady who had worn it : and when 
they found her in a certain city, they brought 
her to the king, who made her his wife and 
queen ; and, when she died, buried her in this 
pyramid of black marble/' 

They say there is a subterranean passage 
from the Cephrenes pyramid into the inside of 
the Sphynx — the huge monster, cut out of a 
solid rock, crouching upon the sand, rearing its 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



101 



womanly head and shoulders forty feet high, 
and gazing with its painted eyes and eyebrows 
up the valley of the Nile, with the placid ex- 
pression of the Egyptian physiognomy. We 
walked up and down the ridge of its back, just 
perceptible above ground, and measured about 
thirty-five paces from the rise of the neck to 
the curl of the tail. Belzoni worked hard with 
his Arabs to dig out the Sphynx, and some of 
the good-natured people say he worked as hard 
to cover it up again; if he did, he liked work 
for work's sake, which is more than our pau~ 
pers did when they were set to pave the yard 
one day, and unpave it the next*! 

Many a mummy pit lies open before us in the 
sand, rifled of its dead, whose remains are scat- 



* It requires but little knowledge of mankind to dis- 
cover how we all revolt against working for work's sake, 
that is, without useful object or purpose. A ship's com- 
pany has been brought near to mutiny by an officer 
making the men polish shot as a punishment. The effect 
of such discipline is eminently demoralizing, and there- 
fore as unfit for a prison, or Union, as for any other place, 
or house whatsoever. The writer remembers the rueful 
expression of a fine manly labourer on a country road, 
breaking stones that wanted no breaking, "It would be all 
right, Sir, if the work were t'other side the hedge." 



102 



NOZKAXI Of 



tered about in a way that would make even 
Hamlet's grave-digger moralize — brown, dusty, 
fusty, crumbling shreds and patches of what 
was once a man — now a miserable mummy ! 
Poor grinning, ghastly, leathery abomination, 
at which w the gorge rises/' what hast thou 
gained by lacking against the pricks, rebel- 
ling against the law, " earth to earth, ashes to 
ashes?" for "dust thou art," after all the swad- 
dling and swathing, and " unto dust must thou 
return," in spite of all the musk and civet, the 
brain-drawing and embowelling. How much 
better and wiser had it been to hail u corruption 
as thy father, and the worm as thy mother 
and thy sister," than thus, after three thousand 
years, to be grubbed up as a curious, withered, 
wizened thing, unrolled and unwrapped, thy na- 
kedness discovered, thy worthlessness acknow- 
ledged, and thou flung abroad as a rotten memo- 
rial of pitiful ambition, known, despised, and 
disappointed ! The dark and silent grave would 
have thrown its friendly mantle over the short 
festering fermentation that returned thee to 
"the ground whence thou wast taken;" but 
now the mother earth that thou hast scorned, 
spurns thee from her bosom, an outcast cheer- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



103 



less and chop-fallen. Could not all the wisdom 
of the Egyptians teach thee "that there is a 
natural body and there is a spiritual body?" 
and that in due season, {t this corruptible must 
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put 
on immortality?" What shall it profit when 
the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, that thy fleshless, blood- 
less, leathern carcass may have cheated the 
worm and baffled corruption ? Thy vile body 
will be no jot nearer " the glory of the celes- 
tial which is one," though it have lost 66 the 
glory of the terrestrial which is another." 

A beautiful sarcophagus of black granite, 
once probably in the cell of a pyramid, now 
stands neglected among the pits ; the sculpture 
on the adamantine stone admirable; on the 
breast of the figure represented by the lid, 
is a very spirited emblem of immortality 
with its angel wings outspread. We collect 
a few shreds of mummy cloth, and little por- 
celain images with hieroglyphic inscriptions 
(perhaps prayers for the dead) which are found 
always buried with the mummies ; a quantity 
of pottery and glass lies strewed about, and 
tear-hottles, or lachrymatories, are often dis- 



104 



NOZBANI IN 



covered: u Put thou my tears in thy bottle." 
(Psalm lvi.) 

Our evening levee of Arabs at the tent door 
is very amusing, and might occupy an artist, 
Poor fellows ! nothing can be more unassuming 
and tractable than their behaviour; they sit 
squatting upon their heels before us, with little 
fragments of antique trumpery scratched up in 
the sand, and wait patiently for their turn to 
barter for a few fuddahs or parahs, or, better 
still, a thimble-full of gunpowder. TTe dis- 
cover no attempt at filching, though our tent 
contains priceless (Brummagem) treasure, and 
no propensity to bully, though they are twenty 
to one, and might frighten us to death, or eat 
us alive, if they thought proper. But we are 
in no danger either of (t spoiling of our goods 
or martyrdom/* were they even evilly disposed; 
for the Basha rules with a rod of iron, and 
would visit the village and district with halter 
and bastinado, if European travellers were mo- 
lested. This explains the anxiety of the old 
sheyk or chief to ensure our safety by dis- 
patching a guard on the first night of our 
arrival, for he would be considered and treated 
as responsible, both for our lives and property. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



105 



These village Arabs are a very different race 
from the Bedouins of the desert, as different as 
tame cats from wild cats ; the fellah or peasant 
(plural, fellaheen) is a quiet laborious hewer 
of wood and drawer of water, especially the 
latter, his principal toil being that of irriga- 
tion ; while the Bedouin is a restless prowling 
wanderer over his native wastes, of which he 
considers himself joint owner and occupier, en- 
titled and empowered to levy contribution on 
all intruders. The Bedouin looks upon the 
fellah with contempt as a dweller within walls, 
and the fellah acknowledges his own inferiority, 
and takes pride in claiming kindred with the 
unconquered warriors of the desert. 

After three days and three nights 5 gipsying 
under the pyramids of Ghizeh — with great in- 
terest in the past and intense enjoyment of the 
present — with books and guns and good cheer 
at command — we strike our tent, and move 
southward about ten miles, to Saccara, shoot- 
ing wild fowl on various pools along the line 
of march, to reinforce Hassan's commissariat. 
Meet long strings of laden camels, and occa- 
sionally parties of mounted Bedouins in the 
pay of the Basha, equipped with prodigiously 



106 



KOZEANI IN 



long spears, and not much shorter guns ; but 
a stranger may pass without fear of spear or 
gun from Cairo to Syene ; and for this we are 
bound in gratitude to make due acknowledg- 
ment. An Englishman was shot some years 
since on the Nile, and the hubbub never sub- 
sided till the village was burned, the sheyk 
beheaded, the best of the men enrolled, and 
the rest bastinadoed, — a wholesome example, 
which has stamped each one of us with a very 
legible " nemo me impune lacessit," or we 
might not be quite so much at our ease in the 
neighbourhood of the light cavalry. 

The great curiosity of Saccara is the Ibis 
mummy pit, into which we crawl on all fours 
till we find ourselves by torch-light in the pre- 
sence of many hundreds of earthen jars, which 
might at first pass for red chimney-tops, except 
that the narrow ends are oval and the broad 
capped with white mortar or cement. These 
red sugar-loaf-shaped pots are piled like empty 
wine bottles in rows one above the other, and 
each of them contains, curiously swaddled, em- 
balmed, packed, and potted, a genuine, ancient, 
and sacred Ibis. We, like other travellers, 
break open an unreasonable number for the 



EG-YPT AND SYRIA. 



107 



sake of a perfect specimen, but when exposed 
they soon crumble to powder; some of the 
heads and long beaks come out perfect, and 
the black and grey plumage of the wings is 
very discernible. The cave is full of broken 
pottery and Ibis dust, sacrificed to the curi- 
osity of new comers, who hammer away with- 
out scruple, when they are told that thousands 
more remain in close-packed order behind the 
first ranks. Having smashed our share, and 
secured some bones and feathers, we choose 
four good-looking uncracked jars, and retreat 
with our prizes, nearly stifled with the brown 
snuffy dust of these departed rarce aves, and 
glad to clamber up by the perpendicular hole, 
through which we issue once more into fresh 
air and daylight. 

The veneration of the ancient Egyptians for 
the Ibis is said to have arisen from the great 
utility of the bird in ridding the country of 
serpents, at a period when Egypt extended 
much further into the desert than at present; 
its habitable breadth being increased by artifi- 
cial irrigation from huge lakes or reservoirs of 
Nile water, conducted by canals at the season 
of the overflow. These immense works were 



108 



NOZRANI IN 



the pride and profit of the old inonarchs, con- 
quering large sterile tracts of wilderness, and 
converting them into corn fields of Egypt by- 
bringing the slimy water of the Nile to stag- 
nate on their surface; but the serpents of 
these sandy regions were hostile and fatal to 
man, who, in gratitude to the birds that con- 
gregated on the new-made lakes and waged 
war upon the snakes, invested them with a 
sacred character, — hence the mummied Ibis, 
the pits we have explored, and the pots we 
have secured. The living bird is no longer 
found in Egypt; for, as the men no longer dig 
the pools, the snakes no longer bite the men, 
and the birds no longer eat the snakes. The 
vast lakes of the desert are now dried up, or 
remain only as salt natron marshes; the ser- 
pents are left undisturbed in their own domain, 
and the Ibis has winged its way to regions 
further south — the wilds of Ethiopia — where, 
leisurely wading in stagnant water on its long 
legs, and complacently gobbling writhing 
vipers in its long beak, it wastes no vain 
regret upon the loss of its posthumous honours 
— the priestly potting, preserving, and perfum- 
ing, which awaited the feathers of its fathers. 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



109 



Bruce describes a bird he frequently saw in 
Abyssinia as answering in all respects to the 
mummied Ibis, about twenty inches in height., 
with a curlew beak and black and white 
plumage. 

Moving our settlement from the pyramids 
of Saccara to those of Dashoor, we climb and 
dive as before, with much the same impressions 
and the same result. The great pyramid of 
Dashoor is supposed to be the most ancient 
human monument now in existence; the lofty 
granite chamber, into which we crawl through 
sand-choked, bat-infested passages, is very 
lofty, the roof tapering away by successive 
degrees or steps to an acute-angled or pyra- 
midal form, the construction of which must 
have been scientific. Champollion ascribes 
this pyramid to the third, that of Cheops to 
the fifth, dynasty. The ascent is somewhat 
difficult, and does not pay so well as Cheops. 

We now approach one of the most extraor- 
dinary of all the gigantic works of the kings 
of old — the Birket el Keroom, or the Lake 
Moeris, described by Herodotus as nearly three 
hundred miles in circumference, and three hun- 
dred feet at the greatest depth, " made with 



110 



XOZEAKI IN 



hands and dug:" " yeipoTroir)TO$ koli opv/cTTj" 
Nearly in the middle of the lake stood two 
pyramids, each rising three hundred feet above 
the water, with as much below as above; and 
upon the summit of each was a colossal statue 
of marble. The water for six months flowed 
into the lake from the Nile, and for six months 
flowed out. While it was ebbing, the king 
received daily a talent of silver for the fish 
caught; while flowing, but twenty nrinse, or 
one-third of a talent. (A talent is equal to 
£225.) 

Herodotus describes both the lake and the 
labyrinth as an eye-witness, and is assuredly 
worthy of credit, borne out as he is by Pliny. 
True, the lake is now much smaller, because 
Egypt is fallen from its high estate; and such 
a gigantic work required power not only to 
achieve but to maintain it : "but the pride of 
her power has come down," (Ezek, xxx.); 
"her rivers are dry and her land is waste." 
It is worth remark, that when the Egyptian 
rivers are spoken of in Scripture, irrigating 
canals are meant. The Prophet likens Pha- 
raoh to the Assyrian, "whom the waters 
made great; the deep set him up on high with 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



Ill 



her rivers running round about his plants, and 
sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of 
the field," Yes! the water made, and would 
again make Pharaoh great; the flood of the 
deep Nile sets him up, and the draught of the 
thirsty desert brings him low — water is the life 
of Egypt; and agriculture means irrigation. 
There seems scarcely a limit to the reclaiming 
power that science might bring to bear upon 
the sandy wastes: a prodigious flood of the 
most fertilizing water rolls its calm course from 
south to north on the edge of the desert, whose 
surface is below the bed of the river, which 
is constantly rising from its own deposit; and 
during three months of every year the inunda- 
tion reaches a height twenty feet above its 
average level. Here surely is a fine field for 
enterprise, a good investment for capital, a 
noble conquest for civilization — barren sand 
that may be made fruitful soil, offering real 
produce; no transfer of property; no juggling 
trick of trade, where one loses what another 
wins; but the true wealth resulting from God's 
law of increase, giving and preserving to our use 
the fruits of the earth, yielding some ten, some 
twenty, and some thirty fold. King Moeris 



112 NOZRANI IN 

saw this, understood it, and realized it three 
thousand years ago; and the lake and the 
canal still remain, as monuments of wisdom 
and true economy to our politico-economic 
age. And what prevents the Egyptian ruler, 
in the nineteenth century of the Christian eera, 
from doing likewise? — nothing but the igno- 
rance of a Turk deluded by the knavery and 
quackery of European adventurers, and the 
pitiful ambition of raising an army he has no 
means of paying, and which therefore will not 
fight — of creating a navy he has no means of 
manning, and which therefore cannot fight. But 
his peaceful cupidity is no better directed than 
his warlike energy: Manchester mills, which 
cannot work because the sand blows through 
the machinery — locomotive rails, that cannot 
be laid because the sand blows over the 
sleepers — monopoly of corn, monopoly of rice, 
monopoly of sugar, monopoly of cotton, even 
the very boats on the Nile monopolized — 
grasping, squeezing, iron-fisted, short-sighted, 
and suicidal policy ! or rather folly — the folly 
of the fool, who wrings the neck of the goose 
that lays him golden eggs — the folly of the 
prince, who " keeps back by fraud the hire of 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



113 



the labourer" and "grinds the faces of the 
poor" — the folly of the fool, who grasps at the 
shadow and lets go the substance — the folly of 
the prince, who would make Egypt what it 
neither was, nor is, nor will be, and neglects, 
oppresses, and ruins it, as what it was and 
should and might be — a garner and storehouse 
of nations. Mohammad Ali, the soldier of 
fortune, must go back to Moeris Pharaoh, the 
monarch of Memphis, to learn " the wisdom of 
the Egyptians." 

Of the Labyrinth near Lake Moeris, which 
Herodotus preferred to all the works of Greece 
put together, nothing is now seen or known. 
The " three thousand chambers," — the " tombs 
of the sacred crocodiles," — the halls, the pillars, 
and the sculpture, — have left no record of their 
existence but in the pages of the old historian, 
who has jeoparded his reputation by the mar- 
vellous narrative; yet he tells us only of what 
he saw, or said he saw; and surely it is scant 
courtesy to suppose he said or saw the thing 
that was not : " the labyrinth which I myself 
beheld surpassing its fame" — "tov eyco tjSt] lSov 
\oyov fjLeifa:" "surpassing even the pyramids" 
and even the sober Strabo makes it "epyov rats 

I 



114 



NOZRANI IN 



TTvpa/jLLo-Lv Trapiaov." However, it was but a 
gigantic monument of human folly and super- 
stition; and if its memory had perished with 
it, we should have lost nothing but the record 
of " works that were wrought and labour that 
was laboured for vanity and vexation of spirit, 
and no profit under the sun." 

We have been now more than a week dwell- 
ing in a tent, in full enjoyment of all the fresh- 
ness and freedom of the desert, with the means 
and appliances, the resources and the interests, 
of civilized life; we could cheerfully prolong 
our bivouac for another month, but the desert 
is not our " dwelling-place;" another month 
will, Deo volente, find my friend careering 
across the broad Atlantic, with a power the 
Egyptian never had, to a world the Egyptian 
never knew, driven with the strength of eight 
hundred horses, to battle against the winds of 
heaven and the billows of the ocean. 

We are, after all, the men of olden time; 
no time so old as the time that is: time was 
three thousand years ago, and the world was 
young, and men were children in those days, 
though strong of hand and sprung from the 
loins of Anak. These modern times are "latter 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



115 



days/' and therefore nearer to the end; and 
mighty agents, which the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians never knew, are at work to speed the 
progress of human consummation — printing 
and powder, steam ships and railroads, "gal- 
vanism and gas." All these are means for the 
spreading of knowledge far abroad, and the 
speeding of many to and fro; and our vocation 
calls us hence, from the dreamy by-gone gran- 
deur of kingdoms that are no more, and the 
free and silent solitude of the wilderness where 
we would fain linger, to the busy crowds and 
stirring scenes of the living and leading nations 
of the earth, where we have our real part to 
play, however humble, each of us " a citizen of 
no mean city," and towards these cities our 
faces must soon be set. But my path to the 
great Babylon of Britain will lead me, I trust, 
to the walls of desolate Thebes and fallen 
Jerusalem, as yet "a far cry" to either; so 
lade the camel, saddle the asses, down with the 
tent, adieu to the pyramids, and let us plod 
our sun-burned track back to the gates of 
Cairo. 

The first day's retrograde march brings us 
again to the cliffs of Saccara, where we encamp 

i 2 



116 



NOZRAISTI IN 



for the night; our larder well furnished with 
wild ducks, a little Arab lad having played 
retriever and water-dog to admiration. Next 
morning, explore the tomb or painted gallery 
of Psamraeticus, excavated in the limestone 
rock, and displaying a series of fresco paintings 
wonderfully fresh and vivid, long processions of 
conventional but spirited figures, bearing va- 
rious offerings to a seated monarch; signs, sym- 
bols, and hieroglyphics many and manifold, but 
to us representing and signifying nothing defi- 
nite — the lotus, the ibis, the hawk, the scara- 
bseus beetle, the owl, and the beautiful winged 
figure of immortality — here a yoke of oxen 
ploughing, there a man milking a cow, his 
comrade holding up her fore foot lest she should 
kick; another cooking a goose, while a boy fans 
the charcoal; with other lively scenes, sacred, 
profane, and domestic ; — the vaulted black roof 
spangled with golden stars, and many of the 
lines and ornaments of Egyptian architecture 
in high preservation and beauty; though 
English tourists will nibble now and then for a 
pocket specimen of ancient art, and occasionally 
scribble their names on a royal cartouche — a 
liberty that King Psammeticus himself might 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



117 



permit to the enterprising zeal that brings the 
cockney pilgrim to the monarch's tomb, appa- 
rently for no other purpose. 

Pass through a magnificent grove or forest of 
palm trees, extending for miles along the bank 
of the river, and almost concealing from view 
the villages of Mit Rahini, now recognized as 
the site of the ancient Memphis, the Noph of 
Scripture, — the royal city of Egypt, — the "Ba- 
aCkeLov tcop AtyvTTTtcov" of Strabo. Truly, 
that which was written has come to pass: 
6i Noph shall be waste and desolate without an 
inhabitant." (Jeremiah xlvi. 16.) Apis and 
Osiris, the temples, the idols, and the images 
are gone, and have left no trace. " Thus saith 
the Lord God, I will destroy the idols, and I 
will cause the images to cease out of Noph." 
(Ezek. xxx.) The only image that remains as 
a memorial of the past, is the beautiful colossal 
statue of Sesostris, in red granite, now pros- 
trate, and lately excavated to the head and 
shoulders by Caraviglia. The features are 
exquisitely chiselled, and the expression gentle 
and benignant. The height of the statue, 
more than half of which is yet buried, cannot 
be less than forty feet. A few granite frag- 



118 



NOZEANI IN 



nients, deeply cut with hieroglyphics, are the 
only relics of this capital of the Pharaohs; and 
" Noph must (indeed) have had distresses daily" 
(Ezek. xxx. 16) before her name and place and 
remembrance could have been so blotted out 
from among the nations. She cried to the 
gods she had chosen, but they could not deliver 
her in the time of tribulation, and she is now 
?* cast up as heaps" and nothing of her left. 

»'•*'*«« Men are we, and must grieve 
"When ev'n the shade of that which once was great 
has passed away." 

CAIRO. 

March 9. Arrive at Cairo, and occupy our 
old gite at the giardino, with a feeling of con- 
straint and impatience at the limitation of stone 
walls worthy of a Bedouin, with whose con- 
tempt for civilization we are disposed for the 
time heartily to sympathize. 

Make arrangements with Hassan effendee, 
or gentleman Hassan — not our factotum of the 
tent— for daily Arabic lessons on the cramming 
or anti-scientific and anti-grammatical system, 
having for its object the acquisition within a 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



119 



given time of the greatest possible amount of 
producible and available talk. Words, words, 
words, current coin of conversation, from nega- 
tive la and affirmative tybe, to such ceremonial 
salutation as the following long but beautiful 
and very orthodox formula — Allay hobmoo es~ 
selamoo warachmatoo Allalii weharahkahtoo ; 
" Unto you be peace and the mercy and bless- 
ings of Allah" — an open-mouthed, guttural, 
pectoral-growling, deep and difficult enough to 
stagger one's cosmopolite principle of 6( nihil 
humani a me alienum puto." However, to be 
a man among men, yet unable to express a 
thought, ask a question, or comprehend a 
syllable, is a predicament so helpless and for- 
lorn that there is no submitting to it quietly; 
and one must make an effort to get out of a 
position of pitiful imbecility which meets 
nothing better, whatever it may deserve, than 
that sort of compassion which is nearest akin 
to contempt. The common words are all 
Hebraic, needing no greater change than may 
be worked by omission or alteration of vowel 
points. My professor has been partly educated 
in England, being one of several sent over for 
the purpose by the Basha, to qualify them- 



120 



NOZRANI m 



selves as instructors in a polytechnic school 
lately established. He is intelligent and well 
informed^ and helps me in more ways than one. 

Mohammad Ali is now here, lately arrived 
from Upper Egypt; and the white-bearded, 
grisly-browed, sunken-eyed old man, looks as 
if he had blood enough for another battle-field, 
and resolution enough for another Memlook 
massacre. He was born in Roumelia, a Turk- 
ish province, in 1769, son of Ibrahim Aga, an 
officer of some rank, and has fought and in- 
trigued his way up to his present eminence by 
dauntless intrepidity, never-failing self-posses- 
sion, and most unscrupulous ambition. No 
one knows how many bow-strings have been 
dispatched from the Sublime Porte, specially 
destined for the neck of his Highness, who has 
always contrived to have them twisted round 
the throat of the bearer: neither bow-string, 
dagger, nor poison, have prevailed against him, 
and there is now little probability of his being 
again exposed to such deadly missives; he will 
probably die quietly in his bed, and be gathered 
to his fathers in a good old age — a patriarch 
surrounded by the second and third, if not the 
fourth, generation, after a long life of peril, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



121 



toil, and turmoil — deeply dyed with blood, as 
a soldier, a statesman, and a Prince; but not 
perhaps cruel as a man, i. e. cruel for cruelty's 
sake. Regard for human life has never stood 
for a moment in the way of his will: the 
sacrifice of twenty thousand peasants in dig- 
ging the Alexandrian canal of Mahmoudie — 
the slaughter of the Memlooks in the citadel — 
but above all, the fearful havoc of his military 
conscription, are chapters in his life to be 
stamped with a Death's head; and one cannot 
look upon those haughty sinister features, that 
habitual but slight curl of the lip, without a 
certain creeping of the skin. Ay, he has been 
a man in authority, "having soldiers under 
him;" and not soldiers only, but more dark 
and deadly ministers, with none to dispute or 
disobey: no human appeal from the fiat of 
death when uttered by those lips, or waved 
by that right hand: he saith to his slave "Do 
this, and he doeth it." Poor slave, dost thou 
not know, or dost thou not heed, 

" Erroneous vassal, 
That the great King of kings, 
Hath in the table of His law commanded 
That thou shalt do no murder ; wouldst thou then 
Spurn at His edict and fulfil a man's ! " 



122 



NOZRAXI IK 



But such is and ever lias been the spirit of 
the East — command, absolute and uncontrolled, 
till violence and revulsion metes to it its own 
measure withal; and the consciousness of this 
impending danger, this frequency of sudden 
transition from the loftiest pinnacle to the 
lowest depth, does much to humanize and 
check the pride and ferocity of unbridled 
power, and perhaps brings the prince and the 
peasant nearer in sympathy, than under the 
steady system of constitutional check and 
restraint. While Mohammad Ali lives, all 
will probably remain in statu quo; but people 
speculate upon his death, and anticipate trouble. 
Ihrahiim however, is a man likely to hold his 
own — a soldier, not disposed to trifle or be 
trifled with, and moreover the favourite of 
the army; a competitor for empire would not 
wear his head securely on his shoulders, though 
he were his own brother. 

The grievance which rankles at the heart of 
the people, the root of discontent and disaffec- 
tion, is the conscription — the maintenance of an 
army of forty thousand men out of a popula- 
tion of not more than two millions. The 
political economists say that no state can 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



123 



sustain the burthen of a standing army if its 
proportion exceed that of one in a hundred, 
and here we have one to fifty. There is no 
suffering to which the peasants will not rather 
submit than be enrolled in the ranks; they 
systematically knock out their front teeth, 
that they may not be qualified to bite a cart- 
ridge — -they cut off a forefinger, that they 
may be disabled from pulling a trigger — they 
gouge out a right eye, that they may not have 
wherewithal to squint along a musket barrel. 
The Basha was so enraged at the number of 
these disqualified recruits, that he collected 
several hundreds and made them into regi- 
ments of cavalry — a toothless, four-fingered, 
one-eyed brigade, drilled and armed accord- 
ingly. 

The sheyk or chief of every village is held 
responsible for the appearance of the required 
contingent, and woe to him if he or they be 
found wanting; he sets to work forthwith, and 
saddles the burthen on a dozen of the rich- 
est men of the community, who in their turn 
begin to bully, to buy, and to bastinado. The 
Bastinado! Let us pause a moment, and ren- 
der tribute to this prime minister and mover 



124 



NOZRANI IN 



of Egyptian government — this solver of all 
difficulties, cutter of all knots, remedy for all 
grievances, and open sesame to all treasures — 
a privileged Johnian might call it moreover, 
an unanswerable argument addressed to the 
understanding, appealing and appalling to the 
sole. Does a man growl at rates, grumble at 
taxes, or object to leaving his home, losing 
his property, and risking his life? down with 
him to the ground, pinion his upturned naked 
feet to the loops of the wooden bar, and then 
whack away as long and as hard as two tall 
fellows can lay on, rising on tiptoe for alter- 
nate cuts w T ith heavy whips of rolled and ham- 
mered hippopotamus hide, as tough and springy 
as b u t there is no fitting simile forth- 
coming, for nothing can be so tough and 
springy as these whips of hippopotamus hide; 
so let us say as they say in Warwickshire, 
when no more Shaksperian image presents 
itself, " as tough as tough, and as springy as 
springy;" a hundred cuts or so reduce the 
soles of the feet to mangled shreds and a gory 
pulp or jelly which once was flesh. When 
the poor patient can shriek no longer and feel 
no more, he is flung aside till he returns to 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



125 



his senses, and then the aye or no is put again; 
and unless he prefer his money to his life, 
which not unfrequently happens, he pays his 
contribution and is carried off by his friends, 
a bleeding groaning cripple, halting to hi$ 
grave. They say that a fellah has been known 
to endure the bastinado till deprived of all 
consciousness, when the parting kick to the 
senseless carcass has jerked from between its> 
teeth the golden coin that would have saved 
its owner; certain it is that the power of 
endurance on the one side is about equal to- 
the power of infliction on the other — the same 
master-passion rules the tyrant and the slave, 
and while it arms the despot with torture to 
wring their "poor trash" from "the hard 
hands of peasants," it nerves the peasant's 
fist to so close a clutch upon the trash he 
grasps that nothing short of the gripe of grim 
Death can make him loose his hold. 

The most frightful result of the conscription, 
was in the attempt to carry it out among the 
Nubians, south of Syene: thirty thousand of 
them were forcibly enrolled and drilled as 
European troops; and it is said in Cairo that 
two out of every three fell victims to mal du 



126 



KOZRAXI IN 



pays and despair. During the Basha's career 
of conquest in the southern provinces, extend- 
ing from the cataracts to Sennaar, one of his 
younger sons was burnt in his tent by a chief 
for haying caused him to be bastinadoed, and 
fire and sword were sent to wreak vengeance 
upon a whole nation for the deed. Twenty 
thousand lives are asserted to have paid the 
penalty for this one death. 

The loss of life in the late Syrian campaign 
has been immense, especially during Ibrahim's 
disastrous retreat across the desert, when thou- 
sands of men and camels fell dead upon the 
sand, exhausted with fatigue and thirst. The 
unsuccessful issue of the struggle has confirmed 
the people in their utter disgust for military 
adventure, and Ibrahim's reputation as con- 
queror of Damascus has waned apace. The 
expulsion of the Egyptian army from Syria 
was, as we all know, hastened, if not mainly 
caused, by the interference of England, bom- 
barding the coast towns with her squadron 
under Admiral Stopford and Commodore 
Napier, and landing a vast number of muskets, 
with ammunition, to be distributed among the 
natives. The Basha might naturally have 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



127 



felt and shown displeasure towards our country 
and countrymen, but has gained greater honour 
by refraining from molesting either English 
subjects or English interests, — we are as free 
as ever to come and go, sure of protection 
for life and property; and the transit of Indian 
passengers, as well as that of the overland 
mail, has never once been subjected to inter- 
ruption or inconvenience. Commodore Napier 
visited Cairo after his blockade of Alexandria, 
and was very courteously and respectfully 
received, both by the government and the 
people. There is a current report that many 
of the guns at Alexandria were spiked during 
the blockade, by the men who were to work 
them in the event of an attack; and the army 
was so discouraged and discontented by its 
arrear of pay, the hostility of England, and 
the non-intervention of France, that the Euro- 
peans of Cairo were in dread of open revolt, 
too surely to be followed up by the plunder 
and massacre of resident Franks. 

Opinions of course differ as to the wisdom of 
Lord Palmerston's policy on the Syrian and 
Egyptian question ; but whether his policy was 
wise or otherwise, it certainly was graced by 



128 



NOZRAM IN 



success, — a result with which the world never 
quarrels, having long since pronounced its dic- 
tum, "better be lucky than wise." Lord Pal- 
merston played the game, and won — M. Thiers 
played against him, and lost. France looked on 
and her fleet kept off, while England battered 
and bombarded Beyrout, Tyre, Sidon, and Acre 
— landed arms and ammunition upon the coast, 
for the Syrian people — blockaded Alexandria 
in the teeth of the Basha's dozen line-of-battle 
ships — and finally compelled Ibrahim to retreat 
into Egypt, with the loss of half his army, and 
Mohammad Ali to loose his grasp upon the 
noble province, the possession of which would 
have made him a powerful and independent 
sovereign, and the loss of which would have 
toppled over, once and for ever, the tottering 
fabric of the Ottoman Empire, now crutched 
and propped for a future but no distant fall. 

A Frenchman, who professes to know, and 
who has been a political employe, assures me 
that the Basha sent a letter to King Louis Phi- 
lippe at the time of the Alexandrian blockade, 
declaring his readiness to attack the English 
ships, if assured of the ultimate protection of 
France. The plan was to overwhelm ^Napier's 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 129 

little squadron (catch a weasel asleep !) with a 
sudden onset from the whole Egyptian fleet 
then in harbour, and, after sinking the Com- 
modore, to sail for the Syrian coast, and take 
our vessels by twos and threes at their different 
stations. The answer of the King was, " that 
no aid must be expected from his government, 
and that the worst thing that could befal the 
Basha, would be any temporary success against 
the British flag ; a success that would ensure 
his political annihilation, by involving him in 
national, not diplomatic, hostility with the first 
naval power in the world." Whatever may be 
the truth or worth of this story, it is certain that 
the Egyptian fleet consisted of a very formi- 
dable-looking line of heavy two-deckers, which, 
w^ith French science at command, would have 
been no contemptible enemy. The contest has 
ended for Mohammad Ali as well or better than 
might have been expected : he is established in 
the hereditary Bashalic of Egypt, with no more 
than a nominal dependance upon the Sublime 
Porte; while the Sultan, on the other hand, 
has been restored to the precarious possession 
and misrule, or no rule, of his Syrian provinces, 
which, under the iron hand of the Viceroy, 

K 



130 



NOZRANI IN 



would have been reduced to order; a consum- 
mation to be wished, at any rate, as even the 
stern order of military execution is better than 
the anarchy of a horde of robbers. 

The French residents at Alexandria and 
Cairo were sadly crest-fallen at the issue of the 
struggle. It had been confidently asserted and 
believed that any active interference on the 
part of England, would immediately be met by 
a corresponding demonstration on the side of 
France ; and, even to the last moment, the 
breaking up of the Alexandrian blockade by 
the appearance of the tricolore in the offing, 
was looked for by all parties— French, Eng- 
lish, and Egyptian. In hearing the matter 
talked over, little mention occurs of the other 
powers, Austria and Russia, with whom we 
were acting, or supposed to be acting, though 
only an Austrian frigate co-operated with the 
English fleet. They say that the Basha was 
more indignant at the passive position assumed 
by France, than at the active opposition he 
encountered from the British government. His 
Highness told some English acquaintance of 
mine two or three days since, that we were 
une brave nation (the interpreter was French), 
and asked them whether they were satisfied 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



131 



with their travels, and the security and pro- 
tection afforded them. This is a digression from 
Egyptian politics, but the interview was cha- 
racteristic and worth mentioning. The Basha 
saw a party of English in his Shoobra gardens, 
and sent for them, gave coffee and pipes in 
princely style, asked questions with Napoleon 
rapidity, and dismissed them graciously. I was 
sorry not to have been one of the company. 
His Royal Highness is fond of being reminded 
of his victory in Lower Egypt over an English 
army of six thousand men under General Eraser 
— a disastrous affair of ours in the great war. 
His courtiers tell him that the English beat the 
French at "Waterloo, and he beat the English 
at Hosetta ; and therefore that he has had an 
honour equivalent to drubbing us both. But 
the natives of Egypt have no sympathy with the 
warlike ambition or distinction of their ruler. 
There seems indeed little or no national bond 
among them^ unless it be the bond of religious 
bigotry ; and even that is growing weaker, or 
is kept under, by the philosophic liberality or 
sceptical indifference of the Basha, who protects 
and supports the Christian, and restrains the 
Mussulman, whenever he can. 



132 



NOZKANI IN 



The people can scarcely be called a people P 
in the high sense of the term. They have no 
political rights or privileges, — in short, no 
political existence : even the hope of amassing 
wealth is denied them : for the bare suspicion 
of being "well to do in the world," would 
assuredly subject any unhappy wight to a hard 
squeeze. They are slaves, and feel that they 
are slaves, and would soon be told so if they 
doubted it — told quite as plainly as Richard 
the Second, in his dog-latin, told the peasants 
of England six hundred years ago, "Rustici 
quidem fuistis et estis et in bondagio perma- 
nebetis." It is not likely then that the poor 
fellaheen should be very eager to seek repu- 
tation for their chief " even at the cannon's 
mouth ; " they are more disposed to remember, 
with Falstaff, that honour sets no broken 
bones, and entertain a very natural aversion 
to a career of marching, fettering, and flogging, 
exposed to the tender mercies of fire and sword 
and fever, with just enough of bread and onions 
to qualify them as food for powder. The mor- 
tality among the recruits from despondency and 
disgust — the moral disease called Nostalgia — 
is frightful, to say nothing of the item expended 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



133 



in active service. The men who survive the 
ordeal, moral and physical, are strong, active, 
formidable-looking soldiers, armed with musket 
and bayonet, drilled according to the French 
discipline, and equipped in a quasi European 
uniform, surmounted with the red turboosh; 
even military music of an occidental character 
has lately been introduced. In short, here as 
elsewhere, the genius of El-Islam is failing 
before the ascendant star of western civiliza- 
tion ; yet a few years, unless the dying flame 
rise in a fitful flash before it flicker from the 
socket, and the spirit of the East will have fled 
for ever — the Crescent will have waned before 
the Cross ; and oh ! let us hope that this glo- 
rious ensign of the Law of Liberty may be 
borne aloft by those who, in their lives as 
by their lips, profess and prove themselves 
Christians — that the Cross may indeed be the 
sacred standard of peace and happiness, truth 
and justice, to be established among us, east and 
west, for all generations ; then will our power, 
science, and genius have been devoted to their 
right purpose, and ennobled by their right use, 
consecrated to the free and sacred service of 
the abiding Triad — the cause of Faith, Hope, 



134 



NOZRANI IN 



and Charity. If civilization mean Christianity, 
it is the priceless boon of true wisdom offered 
from the kingdoms of the West to the nations 
of the East, and it may go forth conquering 
and to conquer ; if it mean less, or mean aught 
else, it is but the deadly knowledge of good and 
evil already offered by the Tempter ; " Eritis 
sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum " — " Ye 
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." 

But we may believe that a brighter day is 
already dawning for Egypt; her valley is now 
the channel of communication between Britain 
and British India, and the stream of English 
wealth, intelligence, activity, and education 
cannot pour through the land without im- 
proving the moral culture of its princes and its 
people. Many eyes are turned towards Ibrahim 
Basha*; no one doubts his power, if he live to 
succeed his father upon what may now be con- 
sidered the throne of Egypt, and most men 
augur well of his principles and disposition. 
His popularity with the army will go far to- 
wards securing his peaceful accession; he has 



* In Egypt, 2?asha ; in Syria, Pasha; in London, Parker 
(Abraham). 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



135 



won the affection of the soldiery, not only by 
his personal prowess, which is renowned, but 
for the interest he has shown in the welfare 
both of officers and men. His policy is thought 
to be more liberal and far-sighted than that of 
Mohammad; he is known to be a lover and 
promoter of agriculture, and disposed to allow 
trade to seek and find its own free level; he 
loses no opportunity of planting, reclaiming, 
and irrigating — and these three are watch- 
words for Egyptian prosperity. Many of his 
old soldiers are comfortably established upon 
his new farms, as ready to resume the sword 
in his service, as they were to change it for a 
ploughshare at his bidding. He is a more rigid 
Mussulman than his latitudinarian father, and 
therefore has more hold upon the people ; his 
sons are educated in the strict faith of El-Islam, 
and both the costume and the manners of him- 
self and his dependants, argue a strong attach- 
ment to the old order of things, in which, for 
the present, the national strength perhaps prin- 
cipally exists. A just appeal for protection from 
a Christian to Ibrahim is, however, seldom, or 
never made in vain. In person he is heavy 
and powerful, excelling in all martial exercises, 



136 



NOZBANI IN 



and priding himself upon feats of swordsman- 
ship, e. g. cutting a camel's neck in twain at a 
single blow of a sabre. Of his courage there is 
no room to doubt, though it is not so certain 
that it be not sullied with ferocity. 

The saddest sight I have seen in Cairo, is the 
Mooristan, or mad-house, — misery mitigated by 
nothing but its own oblivious antidote 

" Razing the written troubles of the brain." 

A horrid court-yard surrounded by tiers of iron 
cages, where men are cooped, and sometimes 
chained, with less of space, air, light, and clean- 
liness than are allowed to a wild beast in one 
of our travelling menageries. Poor hapless 
wretches ! — the moping idiot, the gay madman, 
and the furious maniac, sullen and weeping, 
laughing and singing, grinning, howling, and 
tearing behind the bars — of all the fearful "ills 
that flesh is heir to," this overthrow of reason is 
surely the most painful to look upon: 

* * * * M omni 

Membrorum damno major Dementia." 

I saw one poor patient brought out of his den 
and set at liberty; he lay for a few minutes 
upon a filthy mat on the stone pavement, his 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



137 



features drawn, livid, and stiff — a shudder passed 
through his wasted frame, and he was dead. 

After several visits, I have established an ac- 
quaintance with two or three, and make them 
presents of bread and tobacco, for which they 
are very eager. One captive, quiet, self-col- 
lected, and handsome- featured, tells a long well- 
sustained story of female jealousy and a family 
conspiracy to obtain his property and confine 
him for life; he stoutly maintains that he is as 
much in his senses as any man in Muzr — a 
strong reason for doubting the tale, which, if 
true, would have driven a philosopher crazy. 
My new servant, Black Omar, who stands in- 
terpreter, believes every word, and thinks it no 
uncommon case; he tells me that snake-broth 
is the " sovreignst thing on earth" for these 
mental maladies, and that no other medicine 
is used in the Mooristan, save the iron chained 
collar and bastinado. 

The next page in the chapter of horrors may 
be the Slave Market; but the maximum of 
misery is usually over before these human goods 
and chattels arrive in the Cairo bazaar — the 
deplorable and sickening abominations of the 
journey across the desert and Nile voyage have 



138 



NOZEANI IN" 



been endured, and the rest is comparatively 
an easy burthen. The slave drivers or dealers, 
called gellahs, are equal, if not superior, in 
Cruelty and villany to any class of miscreants 
that disgrace the earth; it would be "a shame 
even to speak" of the practices common among 
them, and numbers of the unhappy victims of 
these diabolical agents seek refuge in the waters 
of the Nile from a life more insupportable than 
death. The negroes soon become contented 
with their lot, which, after all, is usually not 
harder than that of a hired servant : they are 
generally well fed, clothed, and lodged, even 
from a motive of self-interest, if no worthier 
feeling; when ill they are nursed, when weary 
they have rest, and when worn out are fre- 
quently retained for some easy domestic duty. 
Negroes dancing to drum and fife on a holiday 
evening, afford as joyous if not as fair a sample 
of thoughtless, light-hearted merriment as can 
be seen among the peasantry of France or 
Italy : in our own free but no longer 66 merry 
England" one might look in vain for such 
jocund trippers 

* * "as they go 
On the light fantastic toe." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



139 



Grod forbid that an Englishman should under- 
value the sacred heirloom of his native freedom; 
but if such freedom should be clogged with the 
condition of toiling from the rising to the going 
down of the sun, during half a century, for the 
bare necessaries of life, with Union shelter for 
old age, and pauper burial for the last scene, it 
might expose him to the disagreeable suspi- 
cion of cant, if he were to sing too loud a 
paean to the high-souled goddess who has left 
her votaries so scurvily provided. It may be 
doubted whether the man who, on these terms, 
has to provide for himself, his wife and family, 
in food, raiment, rent, coals, candles, and casu- 
alties, with a sum equal to half the maintenance 
of a saddle-horse, has very much advantage in 
physical well-being, whatever he may have in 
moral dignity, over the negro, who eats, drinks, 
sleeps, laughs, sings, and dances, as heartily 
and joyously as he appears to do in the house- 
hold of a Mussulman, among whose vices do- 
mestic cruelty seldom seems to be numbered*. 

* Dr. Johnson called English liberty, " the liberty of 
working or starving," — a very fair and desirable condition 
of things. God forbid it should ever become the liberty of 
working and starving. 



140 



NOZRANI IN 



A more interesting class than the sable woolly 
negro, is the gentle, delicate, pensive race of 
Abyssinia, of a hue most nearly approached by 
pale ink, and far less remote than the poor 
black from the European standard of body and 
mind. The price of a handsome Abyssinian 
girl is about twenty-five or thirty pounds; and 
they are very anxious to exchange the vile du- 
rance of the market for the rank of an inferior 
wife in the establishment of a rich Mooslhn, 
who by the law of the Koran may have three, 
though he seldom avails himself of this privilege 
to its full extent; the far greater number being 
content with one wife, though that one may 
be, and often is, changed for another,, from the 
great and mischievous facility of divorce. 

Besides negroes and Abvssinians. male and 
female of all ages, who are exposed to the view 
and observation of all comers, there is another 
class of white or Circassian slaves, who are not 
to be seen without an order from the dealer ; 
these (they say) are usually very beautiful and 
often very accomplished women, destined for the 
houses of great men, governors of provinces, dig- 
nitaries of Constantinople, and so forth: perhaps 
even reserved for the Hhareem of the Sultan 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



141 



himself. They are brought up with this pros- 
pect^ and esteem their position higher than that 
of free women and wives under lowlier roofs. 
Singing, dancing, dressing, music, and working 
embroidery, are the principal studies pursued in 
their education. Of these matters, however, a 
stranger knows nothing, but the truth he may 
chance to hear, which probably amounts to the 
usual proportion of half what he is told. 

It is amusing and cheering to watch the 
delight of the blacks when the bargain is con- 
cluded which hands them over to the purchaser; 
they don the white calico wrapper and march 
off, apparently as proud and happy as if newly 
appointed to an office of honour and profit, 
looking with great contempt at their rejected 
competitors for sale, who slink back mortified 
and discontented. The price of a woman is 
cceieris paribus higher than that of a man ; and 
a beautiful Abyssinian girl is eagerly contested 
by wealthy and rival bidders, before whom she 
is perfectly willing to appear to the best ad- 
vantage. The anomaly of mutual antipathy and 
contempt between the kindred races of black 
and half-black, exists as much here as in the 
West Indies; a negro slave considers it degra- 



142 



XOZRAXI IN 



dation to wait upon an Abyssinian, but an ho- 
nour to serve a white. Slaves, male and female, 
when purchased, usually adopt the religious 
worship of their masters. 

The principal amusement among all classes 
of women, is the Bath, where they meet in com- 
pany 5 as European ladies do at a morning visit, 
drink coffee and sherbet, eat sweetmeats, smoke 
tobacco through rose-water, and talk over the 
topics of the Hhareem; of course closely veiled 
and guarded in their passage to and from the 
establishment, if it be a public one. 

The Bath; or Hummum, is not however a 
pleasure confined to one class, but is the delight 
of all ranks and ages of both sexes, and no 
doubt contributes mainly to the preservation 
of health under much adverse influence and 
the lack of medical skill. The bathing pro- 
cess is so singular as to constitute one of the 
peculiarities of eastern life. The public estab- 
lishments are open to all comers for a trifling 
fee, strict privacy being of course ensured to 
the women. The building is known externally 
by the number of small white domes, rising 
from a flat roof and affording light to the inte- 
rior through a bull's-eye glazing. After pass- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



ing into a reception room, and consigning any 
property of value to a responsible officer, we 
enter a heated apartment, where an attendant 
youth aids in doffing the costume of Frank or 
Turk, and donning a curious array of girding- 
towels and napkins ; after which the bather is 
at once ushered into the penetralia called ha- 
rahrah, or hot-water hall, where., half-blinded 
and bewildered by steam and sweat, he is sud- 
denly assaulted by mysterious dimly-discerned 
mutes, who, stripping him of all but one towel, 
commence the vigorous and alarming manipu- 
lation, known by the name of tuck-titckah — - 
pulling, twisting, wrenching, and tugging at 
arms and legs, toes and fingers, head and shoul- 
ders, neck and back, till all the joints and all 
the vertebrae yield the tuck, tuck, or crack, crack 
required by the merciless official, whom nothing 
short of this will satisfy or pacify, though he 
jam his knees into the hollow of your back, 
and pummel away with a determined ferocity 
that makes you cry for quarter. But this or- 
deal once over, which after all involves no real 
though some apparent danger, the rest is lux- 
urious enjoyment; one attendant kneads and 
shampoos you all over with finger and thumb, 



144 



NOZRANI IN 



another rasps and polishes heel and toe with 
brush and scraper, and then conies a grand 
soaping, scouring, and sousing (partly self-per- 
formed), followed up and concluded by as good 
a rubbing down as ever awaited a thorough-bred 
after a training gallop. The cooling is gradu- 
ally and carefully accomplished by successive 
gradations of temperature in different pavilions, 
when, after reclining for an hour upon an otto- 
man, sipping coffee or sherbet, w r e may at length 
depart, under a large libation of rose-water, 
quite sure, for the first time in our life, that 
we are as clean as soap and water can make 
us : we often used to think so before : but cer- 
tain tiny dark streamlets, trickling from the 
pores, excited by the extraordinary combined 
stimuli of steam boiling, scrubbing, scraping, 
and tuck-tucking, convinced us that we had 
never been thoroughly purified from soot and 
smoke till then and there, at the cost of six- 
pence sterling, by the hands of the fastidious 
Mooslim, who, alas! after all looks upon the 
attempt to cleanse the swine-eating Giaour in 
much the same light as the labour of washing 
a blackamoor white: "Can the eater of blood 
wash and be clean?" — "Can the Ethiopian 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



145 



change his skin or the leopard his spots?" 
Nothing rouses the Mussulman to such a pitch 
of disgust and horror as our love of pork; to 
him the swine is the incarnation of uncleanness 
and pollution; he could not even be persuaded 
to sit upon a cushion if he suspected the stuff- 
ing to contain a hog's bristle; he would not put 
on a garment that had been tainted by contact 
with a brush of such hated material; — what 
then are his feelings when he finds that we not 
only perpetrate these preliminary abominations, 
but actually devour the flesh, and, as the climax 
of all unutterable horror, feed upon the blood 
of the beast which he believes to be still pos- 
sessed of the devil? Black puddings must be 
banished before we can win respect from the 
Mooslim : he may admire our means and appli- 
ances of scientific civilization, but while we eat 
coagulated pig's blood, he will never ascribe 
our superiority to anything better than diabolic 
agency. One can understand, from the inten- 
sity of this prejudice in the East, why the 
Apostles thought it expedient to write to the 
Gentile converts that they should " abstain from 
things strangled and from blood." To this day 
there are many millions of human beings who 

L 



146 



NOZRANI m 



would suffer the extremity of hunger, rather 
than transgress either precept. In the streets 
of Cairo we see poultry fluttering with cut 
throats before the door of the house where 
they are to appear at table, sprinkling their 
forbidden blood upon the thirsty dust which 
drinks it, and may alone drink it without sin, 
as " the life thereof." 

Would, however, that the aforesaid hot bath 
could be obtained as readily and cheaply in 
Christian England as in Mussulman Egypt! 
How much burning fever, racking rheumatism, 
and foul ulceration might be spared to our poor 
dirt-ingrained cottagers, if every town afforded 
easy access to such a clearing, cleansing, and 
pore-opening ablution ! What a boon and bless- 
ing to the labouring people of such a cold- 
catching, perspiration-checking climate as ours, 
if the thousands of gallons of boiling water that 
escape by pipe and valve from our factory en- 
gines, could be made available for the comfort, 
enjoyment, and security afforded by the Turk- 
ish bath to the humblest classes of the Mooslim 
community! No people value cleanliness more 
than the English; the national proverb ranks 
it next to godliness: and yet, nowhere upon 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



147 



earth are the means of securing it placed so far 
from the reach of her toiling millions. The 
Frenchman, the German, the Pole, and even 
the Russian Cossack, have all baths at com- 
mand, and regard them as essential to health 
and comfort. The Greeks and Romans of old, 
patrician and plebeian, all revelled in the same 
enjoyment: we alone, as a people, know not 
what it is to bathe for nine months out of 
twelve, all but the comparative few being de- 
nied the ways and means of securing a bless- 
ing, that might and ought to be within the 
reach of every member of every family in the 
kingdom; tending, as it does, to promote the 
health of body and mind, by maintaining pu- 
rity in the one and cheerfulness in the other — 
checking disease by cleanliness, and despond- 
ency by self-respect*. 



* An Englishman cannot travel far East or "West, 
without becoming aware that in no country is the welfare 
of the multitude less a matter of public concern, than in 
his own. Theatres, museums, libraries, galleries, parks, 
palaces, even the old National commons, and proh pudor ! 
the old National churches, are well-nigh closed against 
them. No baths, no games, no dances, no music, no fetes 
for the peasantry of "Merry England"— old sports are 
gone with old ballads, and old archery, and nothing better, 

L 2 



148 



NOZEANI IN 



But neither the old established baths nor the 
new established quarantine, saved Egypt, in 
1835, from the most fearful attack of the plague 
which has been known for centuries. Many 
years had elapsed without any formidable in- 
vasion of the destroyer, and the Basha was 
beginning to plume himself upon the effici- 
ency of his cordon sanitaire, when the angel 
of death suddenly stooped his overshadowing 
wings upon the devoted city, and " there was 
a great cry in Egypt:" a hundred thousand 
victims were buried in the space of a few 
weeks, from among the population of Cairo 
alone, which mourned for a third of her inhab- 
itants; houses and almost whole streets were 
utterly cleared of every living being, and all 

or so good to replace the song and bow, and quarter-staff* 
Then why reproach and bepreach the over-toiled, half-fed, 
down-hearted labourer, for seeking comfort and forgetf ill- 
ness in his tobaccoed beer, and vitriol' d gin ? Give him 
better resources, and you will give him better habits, and 
better tastes. Protect him by legislation, provide for his 
rational and social wants, secure him his pennyworth for 
his penny, and he will respect the law, in respecting him- 
self. Let us look to France, Italy, or above all, Austria, m 
these things, and we shall learn a lesson in paternal govern- 
ment. However, laus Deo, we are improving, though not 
yet in all things " the envy of surrounding nations." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



149 



who could escape, fled for their lives to the 
dry and pure atmosphere of Upper Egypt or 
the desert, where the fell fever never extends 
its ravages. It is said to have been introduced 
in this awful instance by woollen bales from 
Trebizond on the Black Sea, always, like Con- 
stantinople, a focus of the disease in a latent 
or rampant form. Physicians usually consider 
it as the most malignant species of typhus, 
prevailing with various modifications all over 
the world; and the description of the great 
plague at Athens, by Thucydides, four hun- 
dred years B. c, might pass very well for that 
of Cairo more than two thousand years later, 
— dizziness, headache, sickness, spasms, convul- 
sions, blue spots, and the last rattle, are the 
train of symptoms, which often run their deadly 
course in six hours. 

Predestination, or the doctrine of fatalism, 
comes to the aid of the Mooslim in such a 
fiery trial as this; though neither here nor 
any where is it, or can it be, carried out to 
its full and consistent extent, to the neglect 
of the means offered for our acceptance and 
employment — the sufficiency granted from God 
to man — with which he is called upon to work 



150 



NOZRANI IN 



out his own welfare, natural and spiritual, within 
given and prescribed limits. Still, "what is 
written is written," and the Koran assures the 
Mussulman that there is a tree of life planted 
in Paradise, a leaf of which pertains to every 
living man upon the earth below, and that there 
is one night of each year — a night to be ob- 
served by every follower of the Prophet— in 
which the death-bearing breeze blows through 
its rustling foliage, and scatters to the ground 
the withered leaves of those whose summons has 
gone forth to return whence they came, before 
the sun completes his yearly course. Whatever 
may be said on this mysterious subject, which 
is too hard for man, the " knowledge gf which 
he cannot reach unto," it is certain that calm- 
ness in danger and resignation in death, are 
lofty characteristics of the oriental faith, while 
the instinct of self-preservation is generally too 
strong for the sophistry that would persuade 
him to close his eyes to a peril he might avoid, 
or fold his arms before a foe he might vanquish. 
His hatred to quarantine arises more from his 
hatred to all vexatious innovation, than from 
any religious prejudice or doctrinal scruple, just 
as he would heartily sympathize with us in our 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



151 



determined hostility to the introduction of the 
passport system, and call it as he calls a bill 
of health, u a device of the devil, whom may 
Allah confound!" 

CAIKO. 

March 10th to 20th. The attention of a 
stranger in any foreign city is naturally directed 
to the Courts of Justice. Here, if anywhere, he 
may hope to gain some insight into the spirit 
of the laws and the character of the people, as 
he watches the evil elements of human society 
fermenting on the surface, where violence and 
treachery, envy and hatred, malice and uncha- 
ritableness, boil and bubble like the witches' 
gruel in the devil's cauldron. It is a lesson of 
deep interest to learn how far the judge and 
the advocate, in different stages of man's social 
development, work the will and win the wages 
of the prince of this world; or how far they 
recognize the existence of another and higher 
kingdom, whose laws are Justice, Mercy, and 
Truth. Here as elsewhere lawyers, like other 
men, must choose whom they will serve ; the 
law of mammon demands that they " call evil 



152 



NOZRANI IN 



good and good evil, put darkness for light and 
light for darkness, justify the wicked for 
reward, and take away the righteousness of the 
righteous from him." The law of God com- 
mands that they "learn to do well, seek judg- 
ment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless 
and plead for the widow." 

The Mohammadan code is in great measure, 
if not altogether, derived from the Koran and 
its traditions, the laws of which, when not 
involving religious dogmas, are usually based 
upon broad principles of equity. Here again, 
however, is seen the imperfection of all things 
human; the code is simple and good, but its 
generalities are necessarily left for interpreta- 
tion and application to the discretionary power 
of Imams, i. e. doctors, and Ckddees, i. e. magis- 
trates : the former are generally supposed to 
be stupid, and the latter corrupt. The modern 
Ckddees indeed seem to have fallen below the 
standard of our old friends in the days of the 
magnanimous Hharoun-el-Raschid, who kept his 
subordinates in better order than their present 
representatives, whose first if not sole object is 
to turn their judicial purchase-money to profit- 
able account, the prospectus of the investment 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



153 



being understood to hold out unlimited capa- 
bilities in the way of bribery and corruption, 
extortion and peculation. 

The Ckddee is always a Turk, and as such 
knows as little as he cares about the Arabic or 
vulgar tongue of the people ; his duties are per- 
formed by deputy and interpreter, who settle 
the matter by weighing the bribes of defendant 
and plaintiff — the lighter scale of course kicks 
the beam. The witnesses are examined by affi- 
davit, as with us, swearing on a copy of the 
Koran, and invoking the name of Allah ; their 
testimony is taken down by officers or clerks, 
who sit and scribble the deposition with reed 
pens dipped in the brass inkstand stuck in their 
girdle. This is read before the judge, who, if 
not satisfied with the witness, gives a sign to 
two grim officials, who place him not very cere- 
moniously on his back upon the stone pave- 
ment of the open court, which soon rings with 
the yell of the said deponent, as his feet flinch 
under the heavy-falling stripe of the bastinado : 
" And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy 
to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to 
lie down, and to be beaten before his face, by 
a certain number." (Deut. xxv. 2.) It is not 



154 



XOZRAXI IN 



very difficult to perceive that, by skilful man- 
agement of this persuasive argumentum ad 
Tiominem, the witness may be induced to say aye 
or no, as may seem most expedient to the power 
that regulates the lash and calculates the fee. 
On one occasion I saw a poor prostrate patient 
so roughly dealt with, for persisting in his first 
version of the story, that I could not help 
thinking that, if a martyr to truth, he deserved 
to be canonized ; not content with cutting his 
feet to ribbons, they kicked and cuffed him till 
they were tired, and then lifted his bald head 
by the long pig-tail on the crown, and bumped 
it against the stone flags as if they intended to 
fracture his skull, only pausing now and then 
to look at the cloud-compelling judge, who 
nodded serenely through his perfumed tobacco 
smoke, as villainous a Jupiter Scapin as ever 
disgraced a tribunal. After a few minutes' 
intermission of thrashing on one side and howling 
on the other, the examination was renewed with 
cross questions and crooked answers, roared and 
yelled to and fro, with sundry explanatory slaps 
on the face, till at length this bullying, blas- 
pheming, and bellowing burlesque upon justice, 
ended to the satisfaction of the court in the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



155 



required deposition ; and we walked away, 
thanking our stars for Magna Charta, Habeas 
Corpus, and every other constitutional bulwark 
that stands between us and the " fantastic tricks" 
of our fellow men, 

* Drest in a little brief authority." 

The usual punishments are flogging, banish- 
ment, compulsory labour, and death by hang- 
ing, drowning, or beheading. The Koran 
ordains the loss of the right hand for theft in 
the first instance, and of the left for the 
second; but this cruel penalty is now generally 
commuted to the bastinado. A debtor's pro- 
perty is at the disposal of his creditor, and, if 
insolvent, his labour; but no power of impri- 
sonment is accorded. The law of inheritance 
recognizes no rights of primogeniture, not even 
the Mosaic " double portion of the first-born, 
the beginning of his strength." (Deut. xxi. 17.) 
A proselyte to the Christian faith incurs the 
penalty of death*. 

* The principal purpose of travel is supposed to be the 
comparison of foreign ways with our own, and so one is 
apt to run from the consideration of Turkish to that of 
English pains and penalties. Is it certain that the ad- 
vantage is here all on our side ? One Avould fain hope so, 



156 



NOZRANI IN 



One of the most extraordinary sights in Cairo 
is what is called a Zikr 9 or dancing circle of 
howling dervises — (pronounced derveesh.) I 
have been several times to their niosque, and 
every time am more struck with the absurd 
but fascinating ceremonial rite. These men 
are a class of religious fanatics, a sort of men- 
dicant order, laying claim to special sanctity, 
with peculiar powers, and are accordingly held 
in high respect by the people; their custume is 
usually a lofty conical cap of black or white 
wool, with a wide-sleeved frock belted round 
the waist, and the legs naked to the knee. The 



but still the Turk might say something plausible on his 
own — at least he might now and then boast his whip hand. 
Our posts, and pillories, and stocks, have long given 
way to modern refinement (some call it morbid twaddle.) 
The Turk might say that the whip had the advantage of 
deterring from crime by an appeal to a sensible and vul- 
nerable quarter, moreover, that it entailed no long con- 
finement with expense and loss of labour, health, and 
strength ; that a youth becoming a man, would be anxious 
to drop an unmanly and unseemly acquaintance with the 
cat and the cart's tail. Ridicule he might think were good 
in its way, as an aid to terror in the cause of mercy ; 
punishment to be effectual should be prompt, public, 
painful, well-understood, not the opposite to all these, as 
in imprisonment, and transportation. Then, again, sup- 
pose the Turk should quarrel with our bailing system, 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



157 



zikr, or circle, is formed by a number sometimes 
approaching a hundred, who commence by bow- 
ing lowly and solemnly one to the other, turn- 
ing alternately right and left, and pronouncing, 
in the deepest of all pectoral tones, the name of 
Allah, or more nearly Ollah; they soon join 
hands and begin a cadenced movement to the 
right, still bowing low and swinging to and 
fro, with imperturbable gravity, to the slow 
sound of Allah! Allah! Allah! gradually grow- 
ing quicker and quicker, deeper and deeper, 
with an accelerated pace round and rounds 
which begins to tell upon the brain of the 



maintaining it no better than his own bribery, the privi- 
lege, namely, of illegality to the respectable, or gig com- 
munity, the alternative of abiding sentence, or walking off; 
similarly of the fines, such as the luxury of breaking a 
man's head, or other eccentric indulgence (coarsely called 
brutality) for the sum of Five Pounds sterling. But our 
grand argument against the whipping, &c, patronized by 
the Infidel, and our forefathers, would be its likelihood in 
the present day of being enforced generally, if at all ; think 
of flogging or pelting a respectable man ! True, Scripture 
says something on the Turk's side about more stripes for 
those who ought to know better, but this is old-fashioned, 
and we have changed it long ago. The law of course is 
open and equal to all, but on the same condition as the 
London Tavern, payment to wit. 



158 



NOZEANI IN 



grim votaries of the dance, which soon waxes 
"fast and furious." The swinging and bow- 
ing, mopping and mowing, reaches to a frantic 
pitch — the deep hoarse sound of Allah bursts 
into a wild double-bass chorus of La illaha il 
Allah — the revolving ring bows, jumps, and 
whirls, lower, higher, and quicker — the deep- 
mouthed chant sinks to a husky, exhausted, 
spasmodic grunt — and the panting, foaming 
maniacs reel senseless to the earth in epileptic 
paroxysm. A spectator looks on this marvel- 
lous dance, first with a strong sense of the 
ludicrous, then with a degree of apprehension 
as to what may come next ; and lastly, with 
a kind of rivetted fascination, bordering 'upon 
animal magnetism, which urges him to rush 
in and join the solemn antic with all his might 
and main. Nor is the impression transitory; 
the deep monotonous notes sound in his ears, 
and the wild black-bearded forms float before 
his eyes long after the stern fantastic mummers 
have ceased their round ; and in the sleepless 
hours of many a future night, when flocks of 
sheep and the multiplication table have been 
tried in vain, he may steep his senses in for- 
getfulness, by conjuring up the measured swing 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



159 



of imaginary zikrs, intoning the musical hollow 

chested shibboleth of Islam — 

"Allah, Allah, 
la illaha il Allah !" 

The whirling derveeshes are distinguished 
from their howling brethren by the exercise 
which the epithet announces — the arms are 
spread out, and they whirl and twirl with ex- 
treme velocity, avoiding each other with great 
success and apparently no effort. These spin- 
ning teetotum votaries are every whit as grave 
and grim as the howlers, and the striking effect 
is greatly enhanced by seeing men of noble 
mien and stern black-bearded features perform- 
ing evolutions that at first sight appear exces- 
sively absurd. The performers are animated 
by the sound of the Darabooheh drum and 
pipe, accompanying the song of a poet, who 
screams extempore effusions at the top of his 
voice, with sometimes surprising success. A 
happy expression or brilliant image give new 
life and vigour to a drooping exhausted circle, 
who with a deep shout of Allah, regain their 
zeal and power, and renew the unwearied 
round. Nothing delights the Egyptian more 
than these religious exercises, which constitute 



160 



NOZRANI IN 



an indispensable and principal feature in the 
festivities of all high days and holidays. Twice 
a week, after sunset, we hear the howlers, from 
the flat roof of our house, which is close to a 
mosque or college they occupy. The term 
horvl by no means conveys a true notion of the 
sound, which is nearer the bay of a blood- 
hound than any other canine note. 

The mosques or temples of the Mooslim are 
simple and solemn in their aspect, totally free 
from all gaudy or tawdry decoration. The 
Saracenic architecture is closely allied to our 
own Gothic*. Pillars, arches, and lofty roofs 

* It would be difficult to gainsay the whimsical but 
ingenious Lieutenant Lismahago in his diatribe against 
Gothic or Saracenic architecture, as an ecclesiastical style 
ill adapted to our northern clime and reformed worship, 
though prejudice and prepossession would fight hard 
against him. The long vaulted roof, the narrow aisles, the 
lofty columns, and the pointed arches were admirably 
fitted for a service of mystery, solemnity, and poetry, 
under the rolling echoes of the organ and the far-dying 
melody of the chant, but are equally at variance with the 
system of plain prose and sober judgment invoked by the 
Reformers, where all is intended to be seen — all intended 
to be heard, nothing reserved^ nothing esoteric. The 
Roman Basilica, a plain hall, with two rows of columns, a 
flat ceiling, and semi-circular terminus, seems clearly the 
right style for our plain-speaking plan, avoiding, of course, 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



161 



impress one with a Chuech feeling. A lectern 
for the Koran and a pulpit for preaching stand 
in contiguity, similar to that we are accustomed 
to see; the stone walls are plain, unless in- 
scribed with Koran texts; and the pavement 
covered with clean matting, upon which no 
one is allowed to walk, unless bare-footed, or 
with the morocco sock only, the shoes being 
left at the porch. No pews or seats of any 
kind; all ranks pray, standing or kneeling upon 
the mosque matting, or their own Persian car- 
pet brought for the purpose*. The Mohamma- 



the galleries and boxes. In Rome two or three magnifi- 
cent samples of this order still remain ; in London, per- 
haps, nothing worth quoting. The New St. Pancras has 
pretension of some sort, and certainly a new sort, but not 
easily defined, unless by negatives, — not Gothic, not Greek, 
not Roman, but a Christian cross on the top of what looks 
something like an Athenian Tower of the Winds on the top 
of another, and both on the top of what looks something 
like the Ionic Erectheium, with two wings at the further 
end like Caryatid Prostades. Not many days ago the 
writer heard a nursemaid, in the New Road, sagaciously 
explain to her friend, that these female supporters repre- 
sented the foolish virgins, left outside because they were 
too late. 

* The author, while disclaiming all unmannerly epi- 
thets in ism or ite, bears a mortal hatred to the great 
square button-up pews which now so generally deform 

M 



162 



KOZEAXI IN 



dan Sabbath is on Friday, when the Imam 
preaches, after offering prayers for and with 
the people. Great solemnity and decency cha- 
racterize the public worship : every posture of 
prayer is defined and scrupulously fulfilled; the 



and desecrate our old English parish churches. Some- 
thing may be said in favour of enclosing our public com- 
mons, on the score of improvement, provided always the 
cottager had inalienable compensation for his loss, but it 
would puzzle a special pleader to defend or extenuate the 
encroachments of exclusive vulgar vanity on the open 
areas of the National Church, in utter opposition to the 
theory of Christian worship, and flagrant violation of the 
freehold of the people. The following well-meant onslaught 
upon the intruders occupied a different place, and bore a 
local application in the first edition, but may take its 
chance here, a-propos to Mussulman ecclesiology. 

The edifi ce of a church is, after all, nothing more than 
the outward sign of that supposed within, surpassing show; 
but little avails the sign without the signification, — little 
avails the noble fabric of the temple, but for the public 
worship in spirit and in truth within; and how is that 
called public or Christian worship, where the poor are not 
as welcome as the rich ? And once more, how can the 
poor feel welcome to an assembly broken into private 
well-dressed companies, claiming sole possession of their 
respective boxes, whether filled or no ? Boxes, pens, or 
peivs, it matters little for the name, high oblong inclosures, 
with opposite- established tenants, knee to knee, as in the 
vehicle called an omnibus. Such is the aspect of our 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



163 



bowing, kneeling, and prostration are marked 
in every movement by extreme grace, decorum, 
and outward devotion. The assertion of the 
Unity of the Godhead, the expression of His 
attributes, and the prayer for the blessings of 



e( House of Prayer," — " the Church of the Poor!" — some 
dozens of whom, " in vile raiment," among as many hun- 
dreds "in gay clothing," may sit, " hard of hearing," under 
the pale of the wainscot, happily screened from the view 
of "their betters," though not from the reach of the 
draught playing down the thoroughfare cool and damp on 
their aching bones. Against this system of unjust aggres- 
sion upon the poor man's right, — against an arrangement 
equally repugnant to good feeling and good taste, — equally 
imdevotional, uncomfortable, and unsightly, — a successful 
effort has been made, with the sanction and support of the 
highest names in the kingdom ; and, in the broad wake of 
the movement, this little book sets sail as a skiff upon the 
waters, with a fair breeze for a sea-going craft, 

"Prosequiter surgens a puppi ventus euntem." 

It is well known by those who watch the habits of various 
classes, that the rich and gay have nothing to fear from 
the intrusion of the poor and sad. The man in "vile 
raiment," — alas ! that it ever should be vile on this day of 
joy and rest for the weary and worn, — is not inclined to 
place his patched fustian in foil to new broadcloth. He 
will take his seat and bend his knee with his fellows, 
learning to mark his place as his own, with humble pride 
and honest pleasure that there is yet left him a lofty roof 
in his native land, where he is welcome as a man among 
men, all on the level of earth, to worship before the throne 

M 2 



164 



NOZRANI IN 



His mercy and peace, are all in accordance 
with, as indeed they are all derived from, the 
oracles of Scripture. 

The mosques are generally, if not always, 
endowed; and the Imams or priests receive 



of Heaven. It is within the walls of his Church that the 
labourer would seek for consolation in trial and instruction 
in duty, if we would but treat him when there with the 
kindness and respect so due from us all to his ill-requited 
service. He would then and there learn to respect him- 
self, while respecting the society that no longer cast him 
out, recognizing the practical working of those truths, the 
profession of which now falls upon his dull ear as little 
better than the mockery of insult ! A man who can join 
with "spirit and understanding" in the service of the 
Church of England, is a man of sound education and 
awakened mind ; and if it come home to his heart, and 
tell well in his life, he is then far more than a learned, he 
is a wise man, fearing God and knowing himself, the highest 
and latest of all knowledge, without which the greatest 
Doctor is but the greatest fool. This education of wisdom, 
England has, by her Parochial system, provided for the 
humblest of her sons and daughters ; let it only have free 
scope, and it will work what nothing else will work— con- 
viction of duty upon the conscience of all, mutual obliga- 
tion between all members united in the fellowship of 
Christ, teaching that poverty, like property, has sacred 
rights, and property, like poverty, has sacred duties ; and 
that, invasion of the one, or evasion of the other, is alike 
rebellion against the Law which commands us to render 
unto all their due. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



165 



from this property certain small salaries, upon 
which they are not dependant for existence, as 
they are at liberty to pursue any profession or 
craft they think proper. They are not a priest- 
hood in the mediating, sacrificing, or absolving 
sense of the term*; neither is their ministration 
essential in the celebration of marriage, though 
that rite is held by Mussulmen to be strictly 
religious, and is always accompanied by reci- 
tations from the Koran and worship in the 
mosque. Similarly with respect to funerals; 
the devotional rites consist in chanting chap- 
ters of the Koran, usually performed by men 
trained in the practice, called jickyes, while 
moonshids or poets alternately sing hymns from 
the same source, and the women tear their 
hair, shriek aloud, and invoke the spirit of the 
dead. The cemeteries are always beyond the 
walls of a town, and usually planted with 
cypress— sad, solitary, and picturesque. The 

* Priest, as used in the English ritual, is generally con- 
sidered as the short for Presbyter or Pr ester, which means 
elder or superior, that is by position and commission while 
on duty, but not Priest in the sense in which Coleridge 
defines it, that of levying toll, or granting tickets on the 
road to Heaven. But hereby and hereon hangs much, not 
all of a heavenly sort. 



166 



NOZRAKI IX 



sepulchres are ornamented with sculptured tur- 
bans, texts from the Koran, &c.; and the corpse 
is carefully propped up with its face towards 
Mecca. The wailing cry and frantic grief of 
the women is very striking, but is generally 
considered a requisite demonstration of affec- 
tion, whether sincere or not. The women never 
appear in the mosques, and hence the common 
error that Mohammad denied them a place in 
his Paradise; they are supposed to pray at 
home five times a day, when they hear the 
chant of the Mooezzin from a neighbouring 
minaret. The mosques are open daily from 
sunrise to sunset, and all who feel disposed 
for meditation or devotion have free access to 
the house of prayer, where they may K come 
and worship and fall down and kneel before 
the Lord their Maker," according to the faith 
of their fathers, freed from the fretful bustle 
and stir unprofitable of the world without. I 
never looked on a prostrate Mussulman, thus 
muttering deep devotion within a temple de- 
dicated according to his knowledge, without 
sincere respect, and a fervent hope that I 
might be found as faithful a steward of the 
talents entrusted: to us more is given, and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



167 



from us more will be required; he, if lie know 
not and do not, may be beaten with few 
stripes; we, if we know and do not, shall be 
beaten with many. But "in every nation he 
that feareth God and worketh righteousness is 
accepted with Him," through the mediation of 
that Advocate " who died not for our sins only, 
but for the sins of the whole world." 

The Koran, though it contain monstrous and 
hideous absurdities, has yet flashes of grandeur 
and sublimity that remind us strongly of the 
Bible, for the good reason that they are in 
great measure borrowed from it. Every one 
knows that the Mohammadans recognize au- 
thority in the Old and New Testament, though 
they maintain that their Prophet was sent as 
the Paraclete, or Comforter, to declare the truth 
more fully. They acknowledge Moses as the 
prophet of the Old, and our Lord as "the 
Teacher come from God" to declare the New 
Covenant of peace and good will, — they con- 
fess the superiority of Christ over all the sons 
of men, and mention His sacred name, mur- 
muring, "may that name be blessed," — they 
object to the designation, " Son of God," on 
very childish grounds, no better than those on 



168 



NOZEANI m 



which they might object to the "hand of God/' 
"eye of God/' &c, (a question of language, as 
perhaps many of our theological controversies 
are,) though they believe Him to have been born 
of a pure virgin, — they assert that our Scriptures 
are corrupted; that Christ never suffered death, 
but was taken up to heaven, while another in 
his likeness suffered in his stead; the old notion 
of the Gnostics or Docetae. The Koran they 
hold to supersede the Bible, where it differs, 
as being a more recent revelation. They still 
practice the rite of circumcision, but not in 
early infancy. The fasts are very severe; fre- 
quent and scrupulous ablutions prescribed; 
wine, pork, things strangled, and blood, are 
strictly prohibited: but one finds no trace of 
the Sacraments, and no assertion of the doc- 
trine of redemption through Christ, whom, 
however, they look for at His second coming 
to establish a millennium of peace before the 
day of judgment. 

Pilgrimage to their prophet's tomb they hold 
to be the most meritorious act, next to the 
propagation of the Koran by the sword. Para- 
dise is to be reached only by skating across 
a chain bridge, finer than a spider's thread, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



169 



thrown across the abyss of Perdition, which 
cannot be escaped except by the aiding hand 
of the Prophet, who supports the faithful in 
their perilous transit. The life of happiness 
which awaits his accepted follower, consists in 
unlimited indulgence of sensual appetite, though 
the more spiritual Mooslims interpret the pro- 
mise of the houries or hhooreeyelis, the sherbet, 
the pearl tents, and so forth, figuratively and 
allegorically. 

The prohibition of wine is, they say, not 
very faithfully kept, at least by the higher 
orders; and if it were, sobriety and temper- 
ance would not gain much by the substitution 
of opium, the bane and poison of oriental life. 
The abstinence from swine's flesh is no great 
merit where it is notoriously unwholesome, and 
the beast disgustingly unclean. Polygamy is, 
as everybody knows, permitted, and divorce 
scandalously easy ; the Mussulmen are, in short, 
much like their fellow men in other latitudes, 
well disposed to 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

The profession of the leading truths of their 
religion is always on their lips; soldiers, watch- 



170 



XOZRAXI IN 



raen, boatmen, tradesmen, craftsmen, are ready 
at all times and on all occasions to assert and 
maintain the faith that is in them; and the 
language and sentiment from the lowest class 
on this subject are replete with beauty and sub- 
limity. Xo matter of any import is concluded 
without the invocation of " the name of God 
the Compassionate, the Merciful,'' 

66 Bismillah ir-rachman-ir-raeheeni 

and the very watchmen cry the hours in " the 
name of the Great King that neither sleepeth 
nor slumbereth." TVe may hope that this is 
something better than mere formalism: at any 
rate better than the obscene blasphemy coupled 
with that name in the streets of our Christian 
cities, where no one could ever suppose the 
third commandment to be received as Divine 
law. If the poorest beggar sit down at the 
table of a noble with the expression Inshallah 
— " if it be the will of God" — he will be made 
welcome with Bismillah — " in the name of 
God*." The respect thus paid to the name is, 



* Inshallah is perhaps tantamount to our own D.V., which 
may be a serious and thoughtful recognition of Divine 
Power, though not equally edifying to all minds when 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



171 



as among the Jews, carried to an excess of 
superstition; nothing, for instance, would per- 
suade a devout Mussulman to permit the Koran 
to be printed, as the name of the Deity must 
in such case be subjected to violent pressure; 
and inadvertently to stand or sit upon the 
Koran, would be a very heinous sin, and for a 
Christian very dangerous, if observed. 

Among other superstitions which maintain 
their ground in Egypt, is that of the evil or 
envious eye, against the influence of which they 
fortify themselves by many charms. Children, 
camels, horses, and everything else likely to 
raise cupidity, are protected by amulets of 
alum, or small shells: any strong expression 
of admiration on the part of a looker-on is 
resented, and a charm or text from the Koran 

prefixed to a tea-and-toast meeting. The language of 
piety is always respectable when sincere, but should, like 
other language, be under the control of judgment. The 
propriety of the usual newspaper homage to Divine Pro- 
vidence may be doubted, because only yielded to what we 
call merciful dispensations, whereas the mercy of God is in 
and over all His works. People would be startled at read- 
ing in the Times, "H.M. ship Avenger struck upon a rock, 
and providentially went down in deep water, with every 
soul on board ;" yet it would be as true as if they had all 
providentially been saved by the "Will to us inscrutable* 



172 



nozrani m 



muttered against the covetous heart and blight- 
ing eye. Children, as being esteemed the 
greatest of all blessings, are specially guarded 
against the mischief that might befal them from 
the envious glance ; and to caress the favourite 
child of an Egyptian mother might produce an 
impression on her mind the very reverse of 
that which an Englishman would expect from 
his experience at home. Poor little wretches ! 
there is not much inducement to run any risk 
for the sake of a kiss. Of all pitiable objects, 
an Egyptian child is the most deplorable — 
yellow, flabby, mangy, pot-bellied victim to 
climate and vermin ; the latter curse is con- 
sidered not only a preventive against envy, but 
in its own nature absolutely wholesome. An 
infant's face is constantly seen in the streets 
blackened with all sorts of sucking and buzzing 
flies, deemed beneficial for ophthalmia, which 
sooner or later afflicts the offspring of Egypt, 
and towards which, no doubt, the said flies con- 
duce. The children, however, in spite of their 
infantine filth, ugliness, and wretchedness, grow 
up straight, well-made, handsome men and 
women : the figure of a peasant girl, in her blue 
single robe, with a pitcher on her head, might 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



173 



vie for ease, grace, and elegance, with the love- 
liest women in Europe. 

All classes of the women delight in orna- 
ments, and if gold and silver are not to be had, 
adorn themselves with trinkets of baser metal 
— anklets, bracelets, and necklaces, finger-rings, 
ear-rings, and nose-xings. The latter, though a 
novelty to us of the West, are older than the 
book of Genesis, for when the servant of Abra- 
ham meets Rebekah at the well with her pitcher 
on her shoulder, and she offers drink for himself 
and his camels, he puts the ring on her nostril 
(hannezem yal appah), not " an ear-ring on her 
face." (Gen. xxiv. 47.) The hhenna or delicate 
pink stain upon the palms of the hands and the 
finger nails, is used by all women exempt from 
manual labour. This latter and lower class 
tattoo the forehead, chin, arms, and hands with 
blue dots and lines of elegant design, after the 
fashion of Otaheite. The beauty of the Egyp- 
tian women of the fellaheen order, whom alone 
one can see unveiled, is often of a very fascina- 
ting character ; the large black eyes are peculi- 
arly soft and brilliant, the hair dark and thick, 
the teeth white and even, the features well 
formed, the nose Grecian, the deep olive com- 



174 



NOZEAKI IN 



plexion smooth and clear, and the figure the 
very perfection of rounded symmetry. But, 
unhappily, this feminine loveliness soon fades 
and withers away : the relaxing heat of the cli- 
mate, together with toil and exposure, reduces 
the term of their best bloom to about five years, 
beginning at fifteen or earlier, and ending at 
about twenty; though they never lose their 
upright and noble carriage, owing probably to 
the practice of carrying water-pitchers and other 
burthens on the head. They have a peculiar 
aversion to uncovering the head, and would 
consider themselves disgraced if the occipital 
region were exposed to view : I never could 
learn why : they think nothing of leaving their 
blue robe open to the girdle, but veil the face 
the moment they are liable to observation. 

The ghawazee or dancing girls are, as may 
be supposed, of a disreputable class, and they 
alone remain unveiled in presence of a stranger. 
Their celebrated performance consists rather in 
voluptuous action of the body than cadenced 
steps of the feet, and is the reverse of modest : 
though from paintings in the ancient tombs, their 
predecessors, not a whit more reserved, were 
evidently thought worthy to dance before the 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



175 



Pharaohs of old *. The never-failing drum and 
pipe/ with the Castanet in hand, are the music 
to which they move, and when a spectator is 
peculiarly charmed with some new grace, he 
utters a deep Allah, as a note of admiration and 
applause. 

Pay a visit to the museum of Dr. Abbott, an 
English physician, long resident in Cairo, and 
well known for his collection of Egyptian 
antiquities — mummies of men, of crocodiles, and 
ibises, curious rolls of papyrus, bronze orna- 
ments, seals, glass beads, ancient nets, and so 
forth. Among other things, a very spirited 
group of bronze lizards in mortal combat, the 
smaller in the deadly gripe of the larger, the 
execution rivalling any Greek work of a similar 
character at Pompeii. One cannot help being 
impressed with a high idea of early Egyptian 
civilization, from the index afforded by the few 
vestiges that remain. The "reed " paper, the fine 
linen, the ornaments of gold, silver, and bronze, 
the art of embalming and perfuming, the sta- 
tues, the paintings, the sculpture, and above 



* This kind of dancing is supposed to have cost the head 
of John the Baptist. 



176 



NOZKANI m 



all the architecture, stamp the w wisdom of the 
Egyptians " as having been of no rude epoch. 
The household furniture — sofas, chairs, lamps, 
&c. — depicted upon the walls of ancient rock- 
hewn galleries, supposed to be as old as the 
Pharaohs, are of an elegance that Gillows could 
not surpass. Dr. Abbott has lately become pos- 
sessor of a massive seal-ring, of pure gold, with 
the royal cartouche of Cheops beautifully en- 
graved. It was found by an Arab a few weeks 
since while excavating among the mummy pits, 
and is pronounced of undoubted antiquity and 
great value — perhaps the very signet of the 
king himself, the sign-manual of Cheops, who 
built the pyramid, and who lived so long ago, 
that 

tt Antiquity appears to have begun 
Long after his primaeval race was run.' 5 

But his ring-finger was evidently no thicker 
than fingers are wont to be, even in these 
degenerate days ; so we may still hold our heads 
as high as our forefathers, not all giants, though 
w mighty men, and men of renown." 

The courteous proprietor of the museum 
was kind enough to present me with half a 
dozen young mummied crocodiles, curiously 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



177 



embalmed, swathed, and scented, which, on 
being carefully unwrapped, proved as perfect 
from head to tail as when devoutly packed and 
preserved by the priests of Crocodilopolis, two 
or three thousand years ago. The length of 
one of these small fry did not much exceed a 
foot, though at full growth they measure thirty. 

Spend an evening with our distinguished and 
now regretted countryman, Captain Basil Hall, 
on his way up the Nile; the circle saddened 
with fearful news from the Pass of Khyber 
— an army destroyed, a hundred and twenty 
officers lost: but all foretell that the might 
and majesty of England, roused by the shock, 
will shake off the stigma of defeat "as dew- 
drop from the lion's mane ;" — the signal of Tra- 
falgar still streams with her Union Jack ! 

Sunday, March 20th. English Missionary 
Chapel : five Europeans and ten or twenty 
native boys educated in the Faith by the Ger- 
man minister. May the grain of mustard seed, 
by the grace of God, become in due time " a 
tree for the birds of the air to lodge in the 
branches thereof*!" 

* Thegreat difficulty of a Church of England Missionary 
and one with which Dissenters are unencumbered, is that 



178 



NOZKANI IN 



CAIRO TO SUEZ. 
DESERT. 

March 2\st to Zlst. Set off with a French 
merchant for a journey to Suez across the de- 
sert with a cavalcade of four Arabs and half 
a dozen camels, two of them being of the light 
dromedary breed for our own riding. These 
dromedaries only differ from the camels in be- 
ing lighter, just as a roadster differs from a 
dray-horse ; they have but one hump, and not 
two, as is sometimes supposed. Our tent and 
a stock of provisions, consisting of goat-skins 
full of water, and a good supply of bread, rice, 
maccaroni, coffee, sugar, lemons, rum, and live 



he lias to transplant the whole Prayer Book system into a 
moral and physical atmosphere for which it is not adapted 
or intended, and for which the recipients are not prepared; 
this is like the now obsolete notion of equipping our Indian 
troops in scarlet wool and padded breasts. "Why should 
we be in haste to ask more than the Apostles did of the 
heathen converts, "Believe and be baptized" with the 
simplest and shortest forms, keeping every complication 
of symbol and article in the back-ground. We all know,, 
or should know, how much is yet to be done in educating 
our own people up to the Liturgy. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 179 

poultry, constitute the load of one of our beasts 
of burthen ; the other three carry my friend's 
bales, and the Arabs when they think proper. 
Monsieur and I left the walls of Cairo at an 
early hour, and halted outside the gates under 
the shadow of the tombs of the Caliphs, ad- 
miring the richly-sculptured Saracenic domes 
of these ancient and royal sepulchres, which 
tower from the lonely sand in all the pride and 
beauty of the richest style of oriental architec- 
ture. Our expected cavalcade gave us ample 
time to look and speculate, being, as usual with 
these gentry, utterly regardless of punctuality; 
and to meet this and other characteristics of the 
East, a traveller will do well to provide him- 
self with a three-fold panoply of patience. At 
length, after galloping hither and thither in 
search of the defaulters, with much less im- 
penetrable quietude than that recommended, 
we espy our friends in the distance, leisurely 
bowing and swinging time to the slow-pacing, 
long-necked, high-humped beasts, on the tops 
of which they are perched. Having sent off 
our horses, and each of us displaced his locum 
tenens, we take our seats on the backs of the 
kneeling, growling camels, which, at a given 

N 2 



180 



NOZRANI IN 



signal, rise up suddenly with, a jerk, hind legs 
first, and I just escape a topple down the steep 
sloping neck and low shoulders of the tall 
dromedary — a consummation by no means im- 
probable or infrequent, till the rider becomes 
acquainted with and prepared for this forward 
impulse from the rear: the somerset, however, 
though very amusing to the spectators, involves 
no serious damage to the performer, if he alight 
upon nothing harder than sand. 

We had not advanced a mile before the wind 
blows our bales off their balance, being secured 
with no girths, and we spend an hour in putting 
matters right and making them as secure as a 
few rotten palm-ropes will allow. The burthen 
of each beast is about two or three hundred 
weight, which they will carry at their usual 
walking pace for a hundred miles, with two or 
three short intervals of rest. The heavy camels 
of Cairo are equal to nearly double this weight, 
but are less adapted to long marches over the 
thirsty sand than the lighter breed of the Be- 
douins; the broad, elastic, spongy foot of the 
animal is admirably adapted to the yielding 
surface they traverse, and they scarcely leave 
more than a trace upon the sand where a horse 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



181 



would be up to his fetlock. The patient, toil- 
enduring, hunger-supporting, thirst-defying 
camel, is peculiarly a providential gift to man 
in these wide-spread regions of pathless desola- 
tion — without its aid the desert would be as im- 
passable as the ocean without a ship : by means 
of the supply of water carried within its anti- 
septic reservoir, it will travel through a parched 
wilderness under a burning sun for three weeks, 
without once drinking from any external source ; 
the rider, himself reduced to a pint-allowance 
of green tepid dregs, which he cannot swallow 
without stopping his nose, listens to the fresh 
gurgle in the long neck of his beast with a 
feeling of envy, which, in extreme cases, in- 
volves death to the poor brute, whose throat 
is cut for the sake of the gallon or two of water 
that may yet save its master from a more cruel 
and lingering fate. The flesh too, though 
coarse and stringy, is not to be despised in 
the absence of better cheer*. 

Pass the ancient site of On or Aven, or Beth- 
shemesh of Scripture, and Heliopolis of the 



* Horseflesh (cseteris paribus) differs little from that of 
the ox .j 



182 



NOZRANI IN 



Septuagint, famed for its Temple of the Sun; 
but all its glories are gone, save one lonely 
obelisk — a granite monolith — the hieroglyphics 
deeply and beautifully sculptured on the Syene 
stone, the characters filled with the cells of the 
wild bee, thousands of which are flying about. 
An old gnarled sycamore, covered with the 
names of pilgrims, is asserted by tradition to 
have been the resting-place of Joseph and Mary 
after then- flight across the desert. The Scrip- 
ture mention of On occurs only in Genesis, in 
speaking of Potipherah, priest of the sun and 
father-in-law of Joseph; but Avert is threatened 
with destruction and desolation by Ezekiel and 
Hosea: " The young men of Aven shall fall by 
the sword: the city shall go into captivity." — 
" The high places of Aven shall be destroyed ; 
and the thorn and the thistle shall come up on 
their altars." Strabo speaks of the ruins as 
being very grand in his time (eighteen hundred 
years since) and says that two of the remaining 
obelisks were transported to Rome, and that 
some were still left, erect or prostrate, though 
marked with the consuming fire of the furious 
and sacrilegious Cambyses. The porches and 
pillars, statues and sphynxes, of which he talks, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



183 



are all gone for ever ; and instead of them, the 
breeze of " the plain of Aven" blows through 
the bushes of a thicket. 

Encamping for the night while the sun is yet 
high, in the bed of the Pilgrim's Lake, at this 
season a dry sandy basin, I ride on to the Tel 
Judieh, an artificial hill of pottery, though it does 
not look like one, which tradition and its name 
connect with the sojourn of the Israelites in the 
land of Goshen — their brick-making toil, and 
straw-seeking servitude. This hill, about four 
hours' march north-east of Cairo, is just beyond 
the limit of the inundation, with the fruitful 
fields of Goshen on one side, and boundless 
plains of sand on the other ; and there seems 
no reason to doubt the assigned origin of its 
name. What the extensive brick-making was 
for, no one knows ; but it is not unlikely that 
the bricks were destined for the internal mass of 
the great pyramids, which perhaps were raised to 
give employment to the formidable sojourners : 
"And Pharaoh said, Behold now the people of 
the land are many, and ye make them rest from 
their burthens." 

Rising before the sun from our night's rest- 
ing-place on the Birhet el Hadji, we pursue 



184 



NOZEANI IN 



our course due east towards Suez, across the 
dry desert, about eighty or ninety miles broad, 
that spreads its sandy surface between the Nile 
and the Red Sea, nearly following the usual 
track of the Indian passengers, — the air 
delightfully pure and bracing ; the sand firm and 
flinty, totally distinct from dust; the prospect 
wild and wide, looking as it looked to Israel's 
sons when they came down into Egypt to 
buy corn for themselves and their little ones; 
and we are pacing our solitary way as the 
patriarchs of old — our camels, our tents, our 
goods, our water-skins, and our young men 
journeying through the wilderness to the sea, 
even the Red Sea. We might imagine our- 
selves following the broad track of Jacob and 
his sons, their wives and their little ones, their 
cattle and their goods, " in the waggons which 
Pharaoh had sent to carry him ; " but the wag- 
gons that have lately passed towards Egypt 
and left their trace, are not the waggons of 
Pharaoh, but the waggons of Waghorn and Co. ; 
and the sons and the daughters and the little 
ones are of the blood, not of ancient and eastern 
Israel, but of our own Island of the Ocean — 
still, we trust, an Israel of the West — of the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



185 



days which were to come — a people " prevailing 
with God/' strong in the u New Covenant of 
the house of Judah, written upon the heart" 
in the lines of spirit and of truth. The cha- 
riots of the indefatigable Waghorn drive over 
these wilds with the fury of Jehu, — high, 
lumbering, two-wheeled cars, yoked with four 
steeds, tearing away from station to station, 
where the genius of traffic — the genius of the 
age in which se many run to and fro " — has pro- 
vided and advertised " good accommodation for 
man and horse." We however have no tickets 
of admission, and need them not, but steer clear 
of the massive stone buildings which have been 
raised with great labour and expense, every 
twelve miles or so, to expedite the communi- 
cation between England and her Indian empire, 
and to which every item of consumption must 
be conveyed from Cairo or Suez ; the price of 
a bucket of water is not therefore exorbitant 
at half a crown. 

Our eastward course is strewed with melan- 
choly memorials of death ; we pass skeleton 
after skeleton of man and horse and camel, 
bleaching the yellow sand with their whitening 
relics. Sometimes a little heap of gravel flut- 



186 



nozeaisti m 



ters with a few rags that were once a soldier's 
uniform ; for we are on the line of march of 
Ibrahim Basha's army, in its late retreat from 
Syria, when thousands perished from thirst and 
fatigue, whose bones have now been stripped 
and their flesh devoured by the hyena and the 
vulture. These horrid birds are nearly the only 
living creatures we see beyond our own com- 
pany ; they stand till gorged upon every putrid 
carcass we pass, digging their beaks into the 
bowels, and tearing the eyes from the sockets. 
Tall, bare-necked, blood-stained, obscene-look- 
ing, death-smelling wretches ; we seldom lose a 
chance of disturbing their feast with a rifle ball, 
w r hich goes plumping into the carrion they are 
tugging at, and up they soar, wheeling round, 
screeching and startled, but not scared from 
the prey. Down they flap again, with lazily 
folded wings, upon the dead, true to their dis- 
mal calling : " Where the carcass is, there shall 
the vultures be gathered together." The sense 
of sight and smell in these birds is wonderfully 
keen. The patriarch Job speaks of " the path 
that the vulture's eye alone hath known." A 
traveller may look round and not see one of 
them on the earth or in the air ; and yet, let 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 187 



a horse or camel fall dying on the sand, and be- 
fore long, dark distant specks are seen waving 
upon the sky, soon known to be vultures sweep- 
ing on their broad wings to the prostrate prey, 
guided on a trackless path by the luring snuff 
of the death-tainted breeze; the ravening mon- 
sters scarcely wait for the sickening eyes to close 
before they scoop the jellies from their holes*. 

We see no other birds but the partridges of 
the desert, so called probably from their rising 
in coveys, as they are not much like their 

* An ingenious and respected acquaintance finds fault 
with the author, for writing too harshly of the vultures, 
as if outlaws from God's creation, and fulfilling no useful 
or respectable functions. But such was not his intention ; 
he fully admits their fit adaptation to the existing order of 
things : he only meant that they disgusted him, and has 
no doubt the feeling was mutual. 

All things to us disgusting are to us also assuredly 
beneficial ; the existence of household vermin tends 
strongly to the promotion of household cleanliness; the 
offensive exhalation of putridity gives warning irresistible 
of endangered health, and so forth to the end of the chap- 
ter of grumbles. The writer is glad, however, to make 
the amende to the vultures, by stating that he now believes 
his accusation about "scarcely waiting," &c, to be calumny. 
He believes that the vulture, availing himself, like other 
bon vivants, of the Magna Charta, de gustibus, never touches 
his game till it stink : for which mankind are the more 
obliged. — ( See Waterton^s Essays.) 




188 



xozraki m 



namesakes in other respects, falling off espe- 
cially in culinary excellence — tough, tasteless 
things, scarcely worth powder and shot. I 
occasionally wander so far after them, that the 
camels begin to sink in the horizon, and it 
requires steady steering on a straight line to 
rejoin the little cavalcade or caravan, who stop 
for nothing but rest, by day or night, soberly 
striding and swinging their way in Indian file, 
at about three miles an hour. The being left 
alone, when for a few minutes losing sight of 
them behind a rising ground, reminds one of the 
feeling of a solitary seaman in a boat upon the 
ocean : and without a pocket compass the pre- 
dicament would be nearly as perilous, for there 
are no land-marks, no sign-posts, no mile-stones, 
no guide but the occasional slight track of hoofs, 
easily swept out, and perhaps crossing each 
other ; and then the ghastly memorial of some 
poor wayfarer, who has left his dry bones sigh- 
ing in the wilderness, " Siste viator." " Son of 
man, can these bones live ? and I answered, O 
Lord God thou knowest." The day will come 
when the desert like the sea must cast up her 
dead, as many, it may be, from her parched 
and dreary wastes as from the salt caverns of 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



189 



the ocean depth : " There were very many in 
the open valley, and lo, they were very dry." 

The dromedary carries me at a good swing 
trot, and we can make a large ring round the 
slow camels without much exertion. The 
motion, at first very rough and strange, soon 
becomes easy and familiar ; one sits far back, 
with stirrup straps stretched out on a level 
with the hump and parallel with the ground, 
as the pace gives a much stronger horizontal 
impulse in the direction of progression than 
the trot of a horse. The beast is not 
at all difficult of management, though much 
given to growling, and has once or twice knelt 
down without the warrant. A young camel 
foal frisks along by our side, and the Arab boy 
has had one or two severe flings in the attempt 
to establish his seat upon the unbroken filly. 
When we halt in the evening, we let the 
animals loose to take their chance for an 
hour or two, and off they wander, browsing 
upon the scanty twigs and shrubs they may 
find here and there, till brought back by the 
retriever lad, who drives them to our tent for 
a feed of barley, and we picket them for the 
night, which they pass in chewing the cud, 



190 



XOZRANI IN 



deep grumbling with one another, probably 
at us, and an occasional attempt to roll oyer, 
with a most uncouth and unsuccessful flourish 
of legs. The silence of the desert is unbroken 
by any sound beyond our little encampment, 
and the deep vault of heaven glitters with 
myriads of brilliant "patinesof bright gold" 
never seen in our northern latitudes ; the pole 
star has sunk nearly 30° from its wonted heights 
and the new and glorious constellations of the 
south have risen, to declare in their turn the 
glory of God. 

Very little experience soon teaches me that 
I can sleep better under the open vault of hea- 
vem than within the canvass shelter of the tent. 
The air above and the sand below are both per- 
fectly dry, pure, and wholesome — no deadly 
dews and damps to scare the traveller with the 
dreaming fancy or the waking truth of racked 
bones and fevered blood; all the luxury of 
London could not spread, for these latitudes, 
anything better than a Persian carpet and cloak 
for a bed, sloped on a sand-heap for a pillow. 

Lying thus al fresco on one's back in the 
solitary and silent desert, with the evening 
breeze blowing fresh and cool after the heat 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



191 



and toil of the day, it is easy to understand 
why the Arabians and Chaldeans, dwelling or 
wandering in vast plains, should have been 
always astronomers and astrologers, — the hori- 
zon around is perfect and unbroken, with an 
atmosphere so pure and clear, that human vision 
needs little help from instruments to read the 
power and wisdom of God written in the fir- 
mament. Thousands of stars, differing in glory, 
climb upward to the meridian, without a cloud 
to dim their splendour; and a sleepless eye may 
watch and follow them till they sink in the 
sandy ocean, from which they rise and culmi- 
nate. The moon too is cut upon the dark sky 
sharp as steel and brighter than silver — her 
new, modest crescent no thicker than the edge 
of a sword, emerging from the blazing west to 
peep at the shadowy earth, before she follows 
in the wake of the gorgeous sun, " the greater 
light that rules the day," from whom she, the 
lesser light, holds the viceroy radiance that 
rules the night. Horsemen are dispatched from 
Cairo to ride far into the wilderness for the first 
glimpse that marks the opening of the lunar 
month; and the thin bright crescent, half 
encircling her coppery, earth-illuminated globe, 



192 



KOZRANI IN 



is discerned several degrees nearer to the sun 
than through a medium less clear than the air 
of the desert. The reflection of earth-light 
upon the new moon, which is often looked at 
with great interest even through an English 
atmosphere, here becomes striking and beautiful 
enough to arrest the attention of the dullest eye 
that ever gazed upward ; and in this voiceless 
solitude, so bright, so vast, and awful, the eye of 
man must look up with devotion and expansion 
of heart to Him u which alone spreadeth out 
the heavens ; which maketh Arcturus, Orion, 
Pleiades, and the chambers of the south." The 
first feeling may be that of our own nothingness 
in the sphere of creation, and in presence of 
the Creator : " When I behold the moon and 
stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man 
that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man that Thou visitest him ?" But the revela- 
tion of His Word, and the revelation of His 
Works — the voice of Scripture and the voice 
of reason — soon reassure the desponding spirit. 
Reason tells us that comparison is earthly and 
finite, belonging not to the Heavenly and Infi- 
nite, before whom nothing is great, nothing 
little, nothing high, nothing low: the Gospel 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



193 



tells us that the same Almighty Power which 
created all things visible and invisible, still 
numbers and values the very hairs of our head 
— that the same Will, at whose fiat " the earth 
shall melt with fervent heat, and the heavens 
be rolled together as a scroll/' is exerted and 
fulfilled when a sparrow falls to the ground, — 
we, then, upon whom the image and likeness 
of our Creator is still stamped — now defaced 
and defiled, but hereafter to be coined anew — 
we need not fear to be forgotten — u we are of 
more value than many sparrows." 

Half way between Cairo and Suez, is a single 
tree, whose branches flutter with votive tatters 
from many a Mooslim pilgrim, and near it we 
pitch our tent for a noon-day siesta, the heat 
and glare being too great to brave without 
better cause than we can show. I find the best 
protection for the sight is a silk handkerchief 
thrown loosely over the turhoosh; the green 
glasses or wire goggles inflame and irritate the 
eyes, and leave the skin exposed, which, after 
a few days' baking, peels off very uncomfort- 
ably. The head should be well guarded with 
a thick covering, — nothing more effectual than 
a turban, with its many-folded shawl, and 

o 



194 



NOZRANI IN 



nothing much worse than a black or even a 
straw hat; the one absorbing and the other 
letting in the fierce beams of a brain-broiling 
sun. The luxury of a shaven head is now ap- 
preciated. No sooner in the shade than off go 
turboosh and tackeejeh, (the red cloth and white 
cotton caps,) for the dry pure air to bathe and 
freshen the heated temples, now denied a sous- 
ing plunge in cool water, for which we long 
like hunted deer. 

The march of an army through these arid 
plains must be calamitous; water cannot be 
carried for all, and without water, man and 
horse must quickly perish. The dancing mirage 
of heated air lures the parched and panting 
wretch with the semblance of a broad and glit- 
tering lake, towards which he stumbles on, 
eager with hope, till he falls fainting and 
furious with despair. We are now traversing 
but an arm of the desert, never fifty miles 
from Cairo on one side or Suez on the other; 
and yet there is sublimity and terror in the 
round ring of our sandy horizon, of which, 
march as we can and pitch where we will, our 
little solitary tent is still the moving centre. 
Southward and westward there is but the Nile's 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



195 



lonely stream between it and a thousand leagues 
of trackless and burning waste, — Africa behind 
us and Asia before us, and we resting in neither, 
but between both, in a land " where the wil- 
derness hath shut us in" — the land of which 
Pharaoh said, " Behold they are entangled" 
in it. 

JOURNEY TO THE EED SEA. 
DESERT. 

March 24. — On the third morning of our 
journey, we rise at four o'clock, the stars 
shining brightly and the air breathing freshly, 
till weary of waiting for our noisy, dilatory 
train, with their grumbling • and refractory 
camels, my companion and I ride on ahead, 
with our trotting dromedaries, w T hose one- 
sided, see-saw, swing-swang, becomes hourly 
less objectionable, and more under the control 
and guidance of the long bridle rope and 
hippopotamus thong, called koorbag, which 
makes a very formidable whip. The poor 
things bend their horny callous knees and lay 
their chests to the ground, with all patience 
while we mount, and rise with a growl of 



196 



NOZRANI IN 



resignation to perform a duty to which they 
alone are equal among all the beasts who 
acknowledge the dominion of man*. After 
rolling and pitching for an hour, at the rate of 
six knots, we discover with the grey dawn 
that we have lost the track, and wander 
hither and thither in a vain search, till at last 
we spy our baggage train in bright relief 
against the golden east, some three miles dis- 
tant, when we put on all steam to rejoin our 
slow coaches, with a modest sense of having 
made more haste and worse speed. There is 
in fact nothing to be gained by fussing and 
fretting; with man or beast in these regions: 
they are both imperturbably tiresome, but 
still ultimately do their work, and perhaps 
succeed better by going their own way than 
attempting any other; so let a traveller, as he 
values his health, keep his temper, and bring 
down his railway standard of a mile a minute 



* It is a sad humiliating truth that one sees more cruelty 
to animals, more tyranny towards these faithful and pro- 
vidential servants of ours, in free and Christian England, 
than in the servile and benighted land of the Mooslim. If 
cleanliness be next to godliness, cruelty must be as near 
akin to devilry. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



197 



to the primitive patriarchial progression, con- 
tent to measure with solemn tread between the 
rising and setting sun a weary space, over 
which the thundering wheels of the Great 
Western would sweep in a short half hour, 
like the fiery blast of a tornado; and the day 
perhaps is not far distant, when wooden 
sleepers and iron trams, rushing trains and 
screeching whistles, will banish for ever the 
poor, patient, providential ship of the desert, 
and then farewell to the free spirit and wild 
blood of Ishmael — the picturesque, the poeti- 
cal, and the patriarchal; and all hail to the 
triumphant ascendant of the iron age, in its 
hard, stern, and stiff reality ! — the purple glow 
of youth will have fled from the life of earth, 
the freshness of younger days will have faded, 
and the men and manners of east and west, 
north and south, will be cast in the same 
mould and smoothed to the same surface. Fiat 
voluntas: "He that is higher than the highest 
regardeth," and all the changes and chances of 
this life are silently and surely working out 
His will which is our good; we may be tend- 
ing to one standard and one level in science, 
character, and language, that all the nations of 



198 



NOZRANT ITS 



the world may at last be united in one Faith, 
towards "one God and Father of us all.' 5 
Steam is surely a means for the accomplish- 
ment of the end, which is to be " one fold and 
one Shepherd;' 5 but of time and season 
knoweth no man. Once sink artesian wells 
at intervals of fifty miles through the sands of 
Africa, and before many years a special train 
may rush across the roofs of Timbuctoo with 
the express mail from Gibraltar to Good Hope. 

Meanwhile we as yet acknowledge in the 
wilderness the empire of time and space, and 
after three days' march, over a track of some- 
what less than a hundred miles, we arrive 
under the bold rugged range of Ataka — lofty 
limestone cliffs, unshadowed with a blade of 
verdure — and from a rising ground we see the 
large square fortress of Adjerood, built for the 
protection of Mecca pilgrims, in the vicinity 
of brackish unwholesome wells, where even a 
thirsty camel will hardly drink; but here for 
the first time we look down no longer on 
mirage lakes and mimic streams dancing in the 
sun, but a real broad gulf of the Eastern 
Ocean, the Gulf of Suez — the Sea, the Red 
Sea, the Sea of Edom! 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



199 



SUEZ. 

One more weary trudge through three miles 
of soft sand, and we arrive at the gates of the 
town of Suez, seeing no green thing but the 
green flag of the Prophet, planted over the 
tomb of a Mooslim santon or saint, till we find 
ourselves established at the house of an Arab, 
acting as French consul, where the first night's 
entertainment leaves us resolute to make it the 
last. Bitter was the regret, and affectionate 
the remembrance, of the pure fresh shelter of 
the desert tent, when driven out at midnight 
by a simultaneous attack of the fiercest army 
of bugs, fleas, musquitoes, et hoc genus om?ie, 
yet encountered. After wandering, in no very 
good humour, through the establishment of the 
diplomatic dignitary, I at length, after various 
slight mishaps, find a way to the top of the 
house., where, dragging the leathern mattress, 
and banging it well over the flat-roofed parapet 
to dislodge any lurking abominable thing, I 
sleep soundly till sunrise, and then hurry off 
for a plunge into the salt, foaming, dancing, 
purifying waters of the Red Sea — albeit as 



200 



deep a blue as ever azured the ocean. Some 
people say it is called red from the sandy hue 
of the neighbouring; cliffs and mountains and 
deserts: but as Esau's name was Edoin, and 
Edom means red, and Esau and Ms sons dwelt 
as dukes in the mountains of Seir — the Djebel 
Seira of modern Arabia — we need not go 
further than the book of Genesis for our 
etymology. (Chap. xxxvL) 

The beach is of fine polished pebbles, very 
pretty various-coloured shells, with a quantity 
of coral intermixed; the sand as the tide ebbs 
is smooth and hard; and upon these very sands 
it may be said that the children of Israel went 
into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, 
with the waters a wall unto them on their right 
hand and on their left. Over these waves, and 
in presence of these desolate cliffs, did " Moses 
stretch forth his hand, and the Lord caused 
the sea to go back by a strong east wind all 
that nio;ht." Robinson, in his u Biblical Re- 
searches," is in favour of the supposition that 
the passage was effected over these shoals im- 
mediately south of Suez, and reasons out the 
pros and cons from the Exodus data, which, 
however, are too general to admit of any defi- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



201 



nite conclusion on either side: take which you 
will, much may as usual be said on the other. 
But it matters little whether they passed five 
miles higher up or lower down; there can be no 
doubt that three thousand years ago the gulf 
extended further to the north than it does now. 
I rode round it this afternoon, by the old castle 
of Kolzum, crossing the Wadi Hadji or Pil- 
grim's Valley, and was satisfied that a rise of 
another foot or two above high-water mark, 
would carry the sea far inland into the isthmus, 
which is even now traversed by a chain of salt 
lakes and marshes which almost connect the 
Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean, follow- 
ing the line of the ancient canal, traces of 
which are still very evident. The drifting sand 
of the wide desert blowing during so many ages 
across the shoals of the narrow arm or gulf, 
would amply and simply account for the appa- 
rent recession of the water, without supposing 
any change of level in the ocean itself. 

Dr. Robinson thinks the strong 66 east wind*" 
must have been a north-east, and that the ebb- 
ing tide blown far south., left the shoals or 
shallows dry, with deep water on either side, 
represented in the sacred narrative as a wall 



202 



NOZEANI IN 



(chomah) to the right and the left. The Hebrew 
word kedern, rendered in our translation east, 
means, in its primary signification, previous ; so 
the 21st verse might perhaps be rendered, "The 
Lord caused the sea to go (back) by a strong 
previous wind all that night/' which would re- 
move the difficulty of supposing that the host 
of Israel marched across the sand in the teeth 
of a rushing column of wind strong enough to 
heap up the waters as a wall on each side of a 
dry path. These questions it may be said 
would be as well left alone; but as nothing in 
the present day escapes discussion, we may 
fairly endeavour to avoid unnecessary difficul- 
ties. That there was an immediate providen- 
tial interference in favour of the fugitive 
multitude, is beyond all dispute among those 
who receive the Scriptures as oracles of God; 
but means were employed, and means of course 
wisely contrived for, and adapted to, the emer- 
gency. The agent or instrument is the wind, 
acting upon water, surely according to the 
usual laws of such action, though now suddenly 
and powerfully called into play for a given 
purpose; but the continued impulse of the 
wind, acting upon the waves with sufficient 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



force to pile [them up right and left of a dry- 
road in the manner supposed, would render it 
impossible for man, woman, or child, to stand 
against it, without utterly overthrowing or sus- 
pending all the laws of the Creator's physical 
government, — a dilemma which no one would 
willingly accept, who has ever considered the 
admirable adaptation of cause and effect 
throughout the revealed works of the Deity. 
But such a dilemma appears quite of our own 
making or seeking, in this as in many other 
instances; let the rooach kadim be a previous 
wind, and suppose it the north or prevailing 
Etesian wind, suddenly and providentially 
sweeping the ebbing waters from the sandy 
shoals, which here stretch across the gulf, with 
a deep sea north and south (in those days deeper 
than now), and we have at once an intelligible 
narrative of Divine interference. The tide re- 
cedes far southward under the influence of a hur- 
ricane — the stormy wind ceases at the word of 
Him who caused it to blow — the army of Israel 
passes over upon the dry sand, the waters to their 
right and the waters to their left, as a bulwark 
of protection on either flank; but the Egyptians 
are hard at hand; Pharaoh and his horses, 



204 



NOZTCANI IN 



his chariots, and his horsemen, are driving on 
with the fury of the avenger of blood; then it 
came to pass in the unrivalled sublimity of 
Scripture imagery, "that in the morning the 
Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians 
through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and 
troubled their host." The roar of the returning 
waters is heard — the foam of the boiling bil- 
lows is seen — the rising flow is stronger and 
swifter than the falling ebb- — the waves, curling 
their monstrous heads, rush onward as a tower- 
ing wall, to overthrow the host of Pharaoh, 
defying the God of Israel; but the Lord was 
their strength and their salvation, through 
Him they triumphed gloriously — " by the blast 
of His nostrils the waters were gathered to- 
gether, the floods stood upright as an heap" — 
" Thou didst blow with thy wind, and the sea 
covered them." 

The route of the children of Israel, from 
Goshen across the desert, cannot be certainly 
determined. Robinson is in favour of the march 
from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, by the 
ancient canal 5 supposing Rameses to correspond 
with Heroopolis, unless it be taken as a general 
name for Goshen. This journey might have 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



205 



been accomplished in three days, even by such 
a host of men, women, children and cattle; for 
water would be abundant, and the distance not 
more than thirty-five miles. Any other course 
would involve nearly triple the distance, and a 
deadly drought for pursuing and pursued — the 
host of Pharaoh and the fugitive nation, which, 
if we rightly understand the " shesh meoth elef" 
as implying six hundred thousand able-bodied 
men, must have amounted in all to the enor- 
mous multitude of about three millions of hu- 
man beings, 66 with flocks and herds, even very 
much cattle" — a crowd which could in no way 
be provided for under a natural or usual order 
of things. An alleged Arab tradition, the ex- 
istence of which, however, Dr. Robinson calls 
in question, points out as the true Wady el 
Tyh, or Valley of the Wandering, the one which 
issues from the Ghebel Ataka, three leagues 
south of Suez, at the Has or promontory jut- 
ting into the gulf, but still about ten miles 
from the opposite shore ; a distance not to be 
traversed in one night by such a mixed mass 
of men, women, children, and cattle. It is 
quite clear that wherever Rameses might be, 



206 



NOZRANI IjST 



the march thence through this valley could 
never have been accomplished without a mi- 
raculous supply of water, which we cannot sup- 
pose to have extended also to Pharaoh's army. 
The same objection may be alleged against 
every other proposed route, except that which, 
taking Rameses for Heroopolis on the border 
of the land of Goshen, brings the Israelites 
along the line of the old canal to Baalzephon or 
Suez, a distance easily to be achieved in three 
days, being scarcely more than thirty miles; 
leading them moreover to a part of the gulf 
which they could cross in the time allowed by 
Scripture, viz., one night. This, then, seems the 
most probable, if not the only possible assump- 
tion; so with this I felt content, and relying 
upon it, traced the vestiges of the ancient canal, 
Robinson's admirable map in hand, over sand- 
hillock wastes and salt-crusted swamps, giving 
myself up to the full conviction, that here it was 
" God led the people about through the way of 
the wilderness of the Red Sea;" that here was 
flung the long shadow of the cloudy pillar by day 
and the red gleam of the fiery column by night 
— the awful Shechinali of the Lord — the visible 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



207 



pledge and abiding token that "the angel of 
God went before the camp/' the guide, the 
light, and glory of His people Israel. 

During a long day's solitary meditating ex- 
pedition, the horse's hoofs frequently slide upon 
a greasy surface of slime, or break through a 
brittle crust of salt. From any of the low 
drifting hills, the prospect is one of wild, dreary, 
and solemn desolation, tremulously quivering in 
the fierce blaze of a sun, which glares in lifeless 
heart-sinking splendour upon a wide valley of 
Death, darkened with no shadow and marked 
with no track but my own — a faint track and a 
fleeting shadow upon a waste of sand — the em- 
blem of human life to the heathen moralist: 
poet, philosopher, and man of pleasure though 
he was, he could sum himself up as nothing 
better than 

" Pulvis et umbra ;" 

yet a few hours, the wind rises and the sun 
sets, and track and shadow are gone from the 
earth: so with man's dusty pilgrimage: "in 
the midst of life he is in death, he fleeth as it 
were a shadow, and never continueth in one 
stay;" but the Christian journeys onward with 
hope and faith to a home beyond the wilder- 



208 



NOZRANI I]ST 



ness — to his citizenship in heaven — though the 
wind may rise and the sun may set, he fears no 
evil through the stormy and shadowy valley — 
he knows that his Redeemer liveth, and that 
" whosoever liveth and believeth in Him shall 
never die." 

The little town of Suez is not worth many 
words — too bad to tolerate, but too paltry to 
quarrel with, containing perhaps twelve hun- 
dred inhabitants who drink salt water in the 
absence of fresh, and eat anything they can get 
from Cairo on one side or ship-board on the 
other. No fields, gardens, trees, shrubs, vege- 
tables, or flowers of any sort, — a dry, dirty, 
dismal dearth of all things desirable. No one 
stays who can get away from a place cut off 
from the habitable world; but the transit of 
Indian passengers gives it importance for the 
time being, and it is moreover a rendezvous for 
the great Mecca pilgrimage. The desert comes 
up to the very gates, outside of which, and 
sometimes inside, prowl grinning hyenas and 
yelping jackals, who, in company with a pack 
of kindred dogs, revel and riot all night over 
the carrion and refuse of the town. Skeletons 
of camels, horses, and asses lie scattered about. 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



209 



admirably prepared, picked, and polished by 
successive comers — hyena, jackal, dog, and vul- 
ture, down to the droning" beetle and red-lion 
ant. An Arab whips the skin off a dead 
donkey with extraordinary speed; and then 
comes the tug and tussle, 

" Kvvecro-iv, oicavoiari re 7racri" 

for the remains of the poor ass, the ubiquitous, 
ill-requited, and much-maligned drudge of all 
races of the genus homo. Unaided, however, 
by »the providential ravening of beast and bird, 
man, with all his dominion, would soon be poi- 
soned out; so the foul feeders are not only 
tolerated, but sincerely respected. The open 
spaces of the town are crowded with crouching, 
munching, and growling camels, offensive to 
fastidious senses in more ways than one, but of 
priceless value to a community depending upon 
them alone for communication with the rest of 
the human race, as the gulf is too fickle to be 
always trusted. 

Spend a day with Hebrew Bible, map, tele- 
scope, and compass on the summits of the lofty 
Atoka— barren, precipitous, and cavernous — 
about ten miles south of Suez, the retreat of 



210 



K0ZRA1S T I IK 



beasts whose track Omar and I follow for an 
hour on the sea-shore. The view commands 
the Gulf running up a wide valley of naked 
dazzling cliffs, like a broad blue river: north- 
ward, the isthmus connecting Asia and Africa, 
a sandy waste seventy miles across; eastward, 
the wilderness of Arabia, backed in the dis- 
tance by the dark range towards Sinai and 
Horeb. In every other direction the eye 
travels over the one universal element of these 
regions — dry, hot, mirage-flickering plains ; 
glaring, bright, and yellow, even through the 
half-closed lid and contracted pupil of the vexed 
and heated retina, weary of the self-same sandy 
picture. What a fearful life-long wandering 
in that terrible peninsula for the rebellious and 
stiff-necked people ! How soon, and with what 
deep humiliation, did the triumphant hymn of 
their high-handed Exodus sink to the mournful 
wail and bitter reproach, se Would to God we 
had died by the hand of the Lord in the land 
of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and 
when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have 
brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill 
this whole assembly with hunger!" Across 
that salt 'gulf, now dancing joyously under the 



EGYPT AND SYPtlA. 



211 



sun in purple, silvery-capped, murmuring swell, 
once rode on the wings of the wind the angel 
of the God of Israel, sweeping the channels 
and piling the billows at the blast of the breath 
of the Lord's displeasure! In the boundless 
plains beyond those blue waves now so placid, 
under the lofty cliffs hanging over them un- 
changed from the days of Pharaoh, did they 
wander for forty years, erring in their hearts 
and not knowing his ways; "Unto whom He 
sware in His wrath, that they should not enter 
into His rest." 

Early in the morning of our last day at 
Suez, Omar appears with horses and provi- 
sions, for a ride round the gulf to Ayoun Musa, 
or the Wells of Moses, and we cross by the ford 
at low water, not far from where they say Napo- 
leon and his staff were near meeting the fate 
of Pharaoh and his host. The future Emperor 
was returning in the evening from a visit to 
these same fountains, and, though the tide was 
rising, wished to save the circuit round the 
head of the creek; in they dashed accordingly, 
"the horse and his rider," for the passage of 
the Red Sea, with a military laugh at Pha- 
raoh's fate; but the laugh did not last long; 

P 2 



212 



XOZRAXI IN 



the flood tide rushed up the gulf with a roaring 
rapidity for which they were not prepared, the 
night grew pitch dark, and Caesar and his for- 
tunes were never in greater peril, They were 
extricated, however, by the self-possession of 
the French general, who, calling his scattered 
struggling aides-de-camp round him, sent them 
off in different directions, all radiating from 
himself as a motionless centre. Several horses 
were soon swimming for life and their riders 
shouting for help; but one had gone steadily far 
ahead on firm ground in shallow water, and his 
clear call of encouragement pointed out the 
only line of safety and escape: all followed 
their leader, and all emerged from the bubbling 
whirling flood safe and sound at Kolzum Point. 
Buonaparte told this story at St. Helena, prid- 
ing himself upon his presence of mind, and 
speculating upon the consequence to Europe, 
had his self-possession failed. He seemed spe- 
cially amused at the idea of the text his over- 
throw in the Red Sea would have afforded to 
all the pulpits of Christendom; but the death 
of the lonely captive, on his Promethean rock 
in the wild Atlantic, afforded a more impressive 
and instructive lesson to worthless, high-vault- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



213 



ing ambition, than could have been given by 
running an imaginary parallel between men and 
times so far removed. One point alone was in 
common to the two — Pharaoh and Napoleon — 
both were proud and mighty, and both in due 
season, and for an appointed purpose, were 
"put down from their seats, and scattered in 
the imagination of their hearts." 

The seven sandy pits with their seven muddy, 
brackish puddles, at which we arrived about 
noon, scarcely deserve the prosaic name of wells, 
much less the sparkling poetry of such a word 
as fountain, with the imagination of which, 
" splendidior vitro," I had been beguiling the 
six hours hoof-sinking march through the weary 
waste. However, there is water, and by com- 
parison and courtesy fairly called fresh — a life- 
restoring sound, which in the desert is worth 
more than all the ambrosial epithets that poets 
ever invented for the nectar of Olympus. No 
special mention is made of these springs in the 
Mosaic record, but there is little doubt that 
as they are now, so they were then; therefore 
in all probability the host of Israel made their 
first halt at Ayoun Musa in the wilderness of 
Shur, and then "went three days and found 



214 



NOZEANI IN 



no water till they came to Marah," a station 
about thirty miles further souths still known 
for the bitterness of the spring which Moses 
sweetened with the branches of a tree, sup- 
posed by Burckhardt and others to have been 
the shrub ghurchud, which grows in abundance 
round brackish waters. The description of Eiim 
in the Exodus itinerary, might apply almost as 
well to Ayoun Milsa, though distant four or 
five days' march — so many wells and so many 
palms — for it would be impossible to describe 
these places otherwise than by counting the 
holes scooped in the sand, into which dirty 
water oozes and deposits a salt, and then num- 
bering the unhappy vegetable victims to si- 
moom dry-rot, which seem as if they would 
fain die if they could; still, while we lie under 
their tufted tops and look out upon the burning, 
blinding panorama, we are heartily grateful for 
any shade extending beyond our own shadows* 
which last moving mockeries would never be 
missed here, however indispensable in European 
circles; and any little man in black should be 
welcome to roll them up and carry them off if 
he could, in exchange for a never-failing bucket 
of the Nile's sweet stream, the very name of 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



215 



which will bring a thirsty Arab on his knees, 
with his face to Mecca, imploring Allah through 
the Prophet that it may be granted him before 
he die to plunge once more into the broad cool 
flood of the Bahr-el-helloo. 

Some memoir of Napoleon mentions, either 
for truth or flattery, that he alone was proof 
against the terrors of the desert, and that while 
even the officers of his staff tore off their epau- 
lettes, and trampled their cockades under foot, 
the General stood cool and calm and pale as at a 
review before the Tuileries. Suetonius ascribes 
the same 'powers of endurance to Julius Caesar; 
and they seem in some measure peculiar, if 
not essential, to the temperament of a great 
man — great, we may suppose, by the happy 
combination of physical and mental resources. 
The French soldiery, when maddened to mu- 
tiny by thirst and blindness, asked with a bitter 
sneer, whether their leader had brought them 
hither to take possession of their promised acres 
of landed property, of which seven feet by two 
would content even the Giant Kleber: "And 
they murmured, saying, What shall we drink ? " 
Near the Wells of Moses, our English Consul 
of Suez has made a spirited but not very sue- 



216 



NOZRANI IN 



cessful attempt to cultivate cabbages ; most of 
which now lie dead and buried, victims to the 
last hot puff of Khamseen wind, which blows 
now and then from the south-west at this sea- 
son, doubling up every green thing it breathes 
upon. 

The only amusing sight at Suez is a sort 
of wizard dance, kept up by a party of negroes 
hopping to drum and pipe round a cauldron 
of boiling pitch, which ever and anon they dab 
with many a genuflexion upon a ship's timbers, 
screaming with all their might, showing their 
white teeth, and kicking their long ugly shins, 
with a reeking breathless determination that 
must have a higher object than the mere fun 
of the thing — probably a hocus-pocus for the 
safety of the outward bound. 

SAIL DOWN THE GULF. 

Conclude a bargain, signed and sealed, with 
the reiss of a taU-latteen-rigged merchant craft* 
to run down the o-ulf and land me at Cosseir* 
leaving the cabin at my sole disposal for the 
voyage. Omar lays in a fortnight^ stock of 
rice, flour, maccaroni, coffee, and rum; and the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



217 



evening of the last day of March finds us ca- 
reering down the Red Sea, before a merry- 
breeze from the north, with a lively boat and 
active complement of five strong fellows, besides 
the fine old weather-beaten, large turbaned, 
white-bearded skipper. As the sun goes down 
behind the Arabian cliffs, the reiss spreads his 
carpet, and kneeling towards Mecca, bends his 
head low upon the deck, clasping his hands 
upon his knees, and murmuring with the in- 
tensely abstracted devotion of the Mooslim wor- 
shipper, the deep Allah hoo akbar, the symbol 
of Islam. All the crew, even to the man at 
the helm, follow his example at short intervals, 
praying, with foreheads laid on the rude plank, 
for a prosperous voyage and happy return. 
Surely the same breeze that bears across the 
waves the simple fervent petition of the pros- 
trate Mooslim, may mingle in unity of spirit 
the accents of east and west, as one accepted 
sacrifice to the Almighty Being, who declares 
His power most chiefly in showing mercy 
and pity; "all the nations of men are made 
by Him of one blood to dwell upon the face 
of the earth;" and the unknown God, whom 
now they ignorantly worship, may yet be de- 



218 



NOZRANI IN 



dared unto them, here or hereafter, by the 
triumphant church of Him who died for the 
sins of the whole world, past, present, and to 
come. Even now it seems that any one of 
those poor simple seamen might be almost per- 
suaded to be a Christian; they worship not, 
as the Athenian of old, a godhead like unto 
gold or silver, dwelling in temples made with 
hands, but adore the Lord of heaven aud earth, 
in whom all creatures live and move and have 
their being. The religion of the Prophet of 
Mecca is, indeed, far removed from idolatry, 
raised as much above the grovelling super- 
stition it destroyed, as itself falls short of the 
Truth, from whose oracles it has borrowed^ 
treasure of knowledge, unknown to the phi- 
losophy of Greece or the wisdom of Egypt, 
neither of which ever rose to the height of 
the first and greatest statute, " Hear, O Israel, 
the Lord our God is one Lord." This, on 
the deck of our poor Arab craft, is the watch- 
word that passes in the dead of night from the 
helmsman to the look-out — no sound heard but 
the rushing of their little vessel through the 
sea, the moaning of the steerage, and the deep 
Wachhed! of the steersman, acknowledged in 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



219 



the same note by a solemn Allah! from before 
the mast — the stars shining brightly, the breeze 
blowing sweetly, and the dim cliffs of the 
African and Arabian coasts gliding steadily by, 
as Ave keep our mid-channel course down the 
gulf, about five miles from either shore — the 
north wind whispering through the shrouds 
with so cool and keen a breath, that in spite of 
rats and cockroaches, the cabin is preferable for 
the last hours of the morning watch. 

The sun shines brightly upon the white rocks 
of the Ghebel Atoka, now three leagues to the 
north, when Omar appears with his well-bred 
salam, a cup of hot Mokah coffee in hand, per- 
fuming the breeze with its fragrance, and his 
own well-conditioned ebony skin glistening in 
fine contrast to the crimson-girdled snowy calico 
from which he has thrown his white-woollen 
hooded burnoos — a sort of blanket-cloak that 
serves well in either capacity, making him look, 
when he turns away his broad black face, like 
a monk of St. Bernard, a character to which 
he bears no resemblance in any other respect. 
In culinary talent, however, he proves on a 
level with the gifted Hassan of pyramid 
memory, preparing a smoking breakfast of hot 



220 



xozraxi m 



unleavened cakes and curried fowl, the very 
sight and smell of which would make a sea- 
sick passenger hungry. Happily, none of us are 
in such dismal plight, but all as ravenous as 
good health, good spirits, and good cheer, with 
smooth water and a fine eanvass-swelling breeze, 
can make us : so, inviting the old sheyh with a 
solemn and reverential Bismillah, to which he 
replies by a fine deep-toned Inshallah, bowing 
low and laying his right hand successively on 
his broad chest and ample forehead, we both 
recline on our carpets and do great honour to 
the feast, without using or needing any other 
means or appliance than ten well-washed fin- 
gers and one wooden spoon. It is a great sole- 
cism, by the way, in oriental good manners, to 
dip the left hand into the dish: but, taking 
care to use the right, you pay a compliment to 
your guest by presenting him with any frag- 
ment that mav attract vour eve : and there is 
no lack of delicacy in the custom. Water and 
napkins are scrupulously used before and after 
eating. If in the desert, where water cannot 
be spared, the ablutions are performed with 
dry running sand, allowed by the Koran as a 
lawful substitute: in fact, bodily cleanliness 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



221 



with the Mooslim is not only next to holiness, 
but essentially part and parcel thereof, and 
sometimes we may fear the part most practised, 
if not most esteemed ; still it is a great deside- 
ratum, though no great virtue, to cleanse the 
outside of the cup, and thus far they are at 
least on an equal footing with us of the West. 
Some of our polite usages would be abomi- 
nation in the eyes of an Arab. It might, for 
instance, be a hard trial of his courteous 
endurance, to test him with our custom of rins- 
ing the mouth after dinner into a finger glass, 
not always opaque ; and he would bear no very 
good will to our pocket handkerchief system, 
not being given to rheum and catarrh in his 
dry and elastic atmosphere. 

The narrow arm of the Red Sea, down which 
we are now running rapidly with a flowing 
sheet, bears a bad character with sailors: its 
greatest width is not more than twenty miles, 
and seldom much above ten; rocks, shoals, 
and coral reefs beset a ship's course on either 
tack ; the tide runs rapidly, and the prevailing 
north wind renders the beating up both 
tedious and dangerous : even a steamer has often 
more than enough to contend with. These 



222 



NOZRANI IN" 



difficulties render it very probable that Cosseir 
instead of Suez will soon be made the rendez- 
vous of our Indian packets, in connection with 
the Oriental Company. The navigation w r ould 
be greatly simplified by avoiding three hundred 
and fifty miles of narrow sea, and it would, 
they say, be no difficult matter to connect Cos- 
seir and the Nile by a railroad through the 
valley of the caravan route, which from Suez 
to Cairo is pronounced a precarious, if not 
hopeless, undertaking, the sand being of a very 
loose nature, and no available water to be had 
unless brought from the Nile. 

SINAI. 

April 2nd. The western sun sheds golden 
light upon the range of Djebel-et-Tur — the 
frowning, thunder-splintered pinnacles of Horeb 
and of Sinai — where once, amid thick clouds of 
darkness, with unearthly thunderings, light- 
nings, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding 
loud, were spoken the eternal words of the 
Moral Law, unchanging and unchangeable as 
the nature of Him who spake them, the Foun- 
tain of all goodness, the God "who alone is 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



223 



good." How grandly do yonder porphyry sum- 
mits rend the purple sky with the sharp, zig- 
zag, thunder-splintered pinnacles which once 
trembled to their base at the voice of the Lord, 
" dividing the flames and shaking the wilder- 
ness;" and how deep but hard to realize is the 
conviction that from those very granite peaks, 
now glowing in a flood of gorgeous light, came 
forth the voice that gave, with " His sabbaths 
for a sign," the statutes and the judgments, 
which, "if a man do, he shall even live in 
them ! " Alas ! what an if was there for frail 
and fallen man in the presence of his Maker, 
He who refuses to behold iniquity, denouncing 
Death as the wages of sin ! What hope of life 
from statutes and judgments in which no man 
of the earth earthy has ever lived, and by which 
therefore no son of earth can be ever justified I 
From the dark recesses of that mountain mass 
He spake and said, "Thou shalt have none 
other gods but me ; " but the world has not 
heard or heeded the mandate of the Jealous 
God, before and since it has bowed down itself 
to worship other gods that are no gods, rather 
than the infinite Spirit of Justice, Mercy, and 
Truth. Mammon, in the likeness of heaven 



224 



N0ZI1ANI IN 



above, or earth beneath, or hell under the earth, 
has the world chosen for the god of its idolatry, 

* * " Rapine, avarice, expense, 
This is idolatry, and these we adore." 

Who that lives, or ever has lived, " naturally 
engendered of the offspring of Adam," dare 
repeat the law, whose proclaiming thunder once 
rolled on the echoes of this craggy shore, with- 
out raising his hands and humbling his heart 
with Israel's King in a prayer for mercy and 
not for judgment ! The law of Sinai came by 
Moses, and whoso rests his hope upon that law 
stands debtor to it all. He who hath said, Thou 
shalt not steal, hath said Thou shalt not covet ; 
and what man among us, before Him from 
whom no secrets are hid, dare lay his finger 
upon one of the Ten Commandments and chal- 
lenge conviction to the sin by the Christian test 
that guards the issues of life and death ? But, 
thanks be to God, we have other means and 
other hope than that which flashed in terror 
from the shattered top of Horeb ; not 6£ the law 
w T hich came by Moses," but the "grace and 
truth which came by Jesus Christ " — the Lord 
our Righteousness — through w r hom and by 
whom all are accepted who strive with 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 225 

singleness of heart, though imperfectly and 
unprofitable to do His will with the sufficiency 
given, keeping the " Faith which worheth by 
Charity. 39 Yet there is but one other gem "in 
earth's dark circlet" from which beam to the 
imagination brighter rays of living light, than 
those which to the eye of faith still crown with 
sacred glory those soaring tops of Horeb and 
of Sinai; and on first jumping ashore by the 
coral rocks of the little port of Tur, the awed 
spirit seems to whisper "Put oft 0 thy shoes 
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground." This feeling is not 
peculiar to the Christian, but in common with 
the Jewish and Mooslim pilgrim — all alike, 
whether disciples of the Law which heralded, 
the Gospel which revealed, or the Koran which 
corrupted the one same Truth — all look with 
kindred reverence towards the holy hill whence 
the will and way of Jehovah Elohim was pro- 
claimed in might and majesty to His people 
Israel. Even the rude crew of our little half- 
decked vessel, that has been dancing all day 
upon the waves in sight of the huge mountain 
mass that towers near nine thousand feet above 
the sea — even they have paid obeisance to the 

Q 



226 



NOZRANI IN 



halo thrown around its summit by the inspired 
record, seen though it be to them as through 
a glass darkly by the dim light of popular 
but unbroken tradition. The howling song is 
hushed, and the joyous jest cut short, when I 
point with a question to the Djebel Tur, and 
the solemn murmur, Allah Khereem, or " God 
be merciful," escapes in low impressive tone 
from the bearded lips that offer propitiating 
homage to the spirit of the storm, which still 
they say lingers in the hidden depths of that 
rock-piled adamantine mountain of the presence 
of the Lord. 

The little town of Tur, with its harbour of 
refuge for a few latteen-rigged boats, does not 
detain us long; the tall slanting yards point 
upward like my own thoughts to the high and 
holy hills beyond, and Omar and I are soon 
outside the walls, with a Bedawee guide and 
light dromedary, for a night in the wilderness 
of Cades, leaving our Arabs to purchase a 
couple of sheep and lay in a stock of water, 
charcoal, and mashed dates for the voyage to 
Cosseir. We soon traverse the plain and 
leave the roofs of Tur behind and below us, 
mounting with every step and looking down 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



227 



upon the broad gulf, now sobering to silver- 
grey in the shade of the lofty coast of Africa; 
thick plantations of palm trees soften the stern 
and rugged landscape, which rises before us, 
range upon range, of Alpine walls, glowing 
dusky red in the upward streaming rays of the 
sinking sun, pouring upon the wild rocks a 
flood of purple light, like the flame of that 
unconsuming fire that once, when the world 
was young, revealed in this wilderness to the 
prophet of old the presence of the angel of 
the Lord — the messenger of the covenant — • 
the Shechinah of Jehovah, whose name was 
here revealed as the Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, the 
I AM THAT I AM — the One Being, who alone 
f tf is and was and is to be" — " the same yester- 
day, to-day, and for ever" — the Triune God — 
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and 
the God of Jacob; yet not three gods but one 
God, and not of the dead but of the living — 
the Lord and Giver of life, by whose quicken- 
ing Spirit all powers, dominions, and princi- 
palities, that rule in heaven above or earth 
beneath, live and move and have their being. 
These, and such as these, are the high and 
overpowering thoughts that throng upon the 

Q 2 



228 



NOZRANI IN 



lowly pilgrim as he communes with his own 
heart in the still and awful gloom of the Wady 
Hebran. This is the valley through whose 
grey glens of granite the voice of the trumpet 
once sounded, as it will only sound once more 
throughout the earth, when blown by the blast 
of the archangel's breath: here it was that the 
brazen startling notes of that wild warning 
peal rung to a thousand echoes by sea and 
land, "Hosanna in the Highest," sounding 
long and waxing louder and louder as the 
Lord descended in fire upon Sinai, " the smoke 
whereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, 
and the mountain quaked greatly." 

Kindle a good fire for the night under a rock, 
and prepare a smoking mess of well-peppered 
rice with unleavened bread, and a skin of water 
from the wells of Tiir, for water is as scarce now 
as when the people were ready to stone Moses 
for bringing them up out of Egypt to kill 
them and their children and their cattle with 
thirst at Meribah. Two or three springs are 
found in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
convent, but are looked upon as miraculous; 
an impression strengthened by their existence 



EGYPT ANT> SYRIA. 



229 



at so great an elevation. Having had our 
coffee, each in due order out of the same tin 
mug, Omar and the Bedawee smoke and talk 
themselves to sleep, with their feet to the hot 
embers of the smouldering fire. The air is 
keen and the sky cloudless, so wrapping myself 
up in a rough hooded greco, I think of Horeb 
and of Sinai, the tables of stone, the law and 
the commandments, till waking thoughts glide 
into a sleeping vision — a dream of the children 
of Israel singing and dancing round the golden 
calf, which Aaron cast at the cry of u Up, 
make us gods, for as for this Moses we wot not 
what is become of him." The calf, or more 
properly and probably the three-year-old ox 
(yegel), whose image they set up, was per- 
haps that of Apis to which they had been 
accustomed in Egypt; and the scene perhaps 
occurred to a fanciful slumberer, from its 
having always appeared such a surpassing 
sample of human wrong-headedness, as thence- 
forth to render any surprise at mortal folly, 
whether ancient or modern, public or private, 
my own or my neighbour's, utterly superfluous. 
The Arabs still believe that the tables broken 
by Moses in his anger, will one day be found; 



230 



NOZRANI IN 



and many a digging and clearing has been car- 
ried on beneath a mountain precipice, in the 
pious hope that " the tables which were the 
work of God, and the writing which was the 
writing of God*/' might again be restored to 
a gold-worshipping world, to incline our hearts 
to keep a law flashing visibly in letters of 
living and eternal fire, inscribed on stone by 
the finger of Jehovah. 

A day passed in the wilderness, with eye- 
rivetting, soul-expanding views of the Djebel 
Musa, but without opportunity or means of 
examining or listening to the monk's local tra- 
ditions. However, it matters little: I came for 
the impression, and the impression I shall carry 
away. To speculate and dispute, would be to 
hesitate and doubt; and doubt w r ould change 
if not dispel the spirit that invests the scene 
with its hallowed charm. The stories and 
legends are often trifling and always without 
authority. There is but one guide to be con- 

* The name of the Deity in regimen with a person or 
thing is a form of the Hebrew superlative, e.g. " a hunter 
before the Lord," " the mountain of the Lord/' for a won- 
derful hunter and the wonderful mountain ; so also 5 figura- 
tively, as the " Kol Jehovah," or " Voice of the Lord," for 
Thunder. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



231 



suited and relied on, for time, place, and cir- 
cumstance, as connected with the Exodus of 
Israel and the thunder of the Decalogue — this 
guide is open to us all, and this I have read, 
turned, thumbed, and dogs-eared, till so worn 
and torn from exposure to wind and weather, sea 
and land, night and day, sand and saddle, that 
its loosened leaves of wisdom would bescattered 
like the sibyl's by the breath of heaven, were 
they not carefully though clumsily cobbled by 
an unpractised needle. 

The engagement with the reiss and his crew 
brings us back to Tur at sunset, without enter- 
ing the Greek monastery of St. Catherine, built 
they say by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth 
century, of hewn stone, on the spot where tra- 
dition asserts that Moses beheld the burning 
bush, and smote the rock with his rod that the 
people might drink. The monks always receive 
English travellers with hospitality and courtesy, 
but they have been so frequently harassed and 
harried by the wild tribes of the peninsula, 
that jealous forms of admission are still insisted 
on, and the visitor, after inspection and a satis- 
factory account demanded and given, is hauled 
up' by ropes in a basket to a door nearly thirty 



232 



.NOZRAET IN 



feet from the ground, the only means of in- 
gress to the convent. Under the protection 
of the Basha, they are at present safe enough; 
but such security is precarious, and recollec- 
tions of fire and sword are still too vivid to 
be soon forgotten. I was slightly acquainted 
with a lay brother of the establishment at 
Cairo, who told me that more than half the 
pilgrims to Sinai are English, and the rest 
principally Russians of their own church; but 
the whole number annually is seldom above 
twenty or thirty, while in former mediaeval 
centuries the books bear record to more than 
as many hundreds from all nations of Christen- 
dom. The discipline of the order is very 
austere — no meat and no wine permitted, 
living altogether upon bread and vegetables, 
and constantly engaged in religious exercise. 
The revenues arise principally from palm 
groves and olive grounds; corn and the few 
necessaries of life they require are obtained 
from Egypt by way of Tur, and they distri- 
bute large quantities of bread to the ragged, 
half-starved, wandering Bedouin of the neigh- 
bourhood, giving them also the privilege of 
exclusive guides; these therefore now look 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



233 



upon the fathers in the light of friends and 
protectors, and are in their turn ready to 
render service when required — a subject of 
constant jealousy and feud with the scattered 
tribes not similarly attached to the convent. 
According to Burckhardt, there are three or 
four thousand of these wanderers in the desert, 
bounded by the Grulfs of Suez and Akabah, 
dependant upon their few flocks and camels for 
existence, living in great hardihood and priva- 
tion, perfectly ignorant and careless of all civi- 
lized resources; nominally professing the faith 
of Mohammed, but in reality neither fearing 
God nor honouring man, beyond the patriar- 
chal authority and brotherly bond of their own 
horde, bearing out the proverb touching honour 
among thieves; though perhaps it is hardly fair 
to call them so, as they do but exercise lordship 
over the wild patrimony of their ancestors — 
true sons of the outcast Ishmael, who grew and 
dwelt like themselves in the wilderness, the son 
of the bondwoman, whose seed according to 
the promise has been made a nation, dwelling 
in the presence of their brethren — girt by no 
walls but those of their black tent — bound by 
no laws but those of honour to each other, and 



234 



NOZRANI IN 



hospitality to the defenceless and confiding 
stranger — never settled, never purchased, never 
conquered — their hand against every man, and 
every man's hand against them. 

The little port of Tur is in great measure 
dependent upon the convent community, to 
whom belong the date groves and gardens that 
cheer the heart and eye in the midst of the 
desolate grandeur that reigns around. Those 
of the inhabitants who profess Christianity are 
of the Greek church, considering themselves 
parishioners of the monks, to whom they resort 
on high days and holidays for the celebration of 
mass, to which the laity are admitted in both 
kinds. The Greek church, as most people 
know, does not recognize the Pope's supremacy, 
but looks up to its own patriarchs, denounced 
as schismatic by the anathema of Rome since 
the middle of the ninth century. They believe 
in consubstantiation, but deny the procession of 
the Spirit from the Son — baptize children by 
trine immersion, who are immediately admitted 
to communion — never elevate or carry about 
the host, and abhor images which cast a shadow. 
The secular clergy are generally married men, 
and very ignorant. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



235 



Go on board in the dark, well fagged with 
twenty-four hours' march, and sleep soundly 
through all the hubbub of unmooring and set- 
ting sail with a crew of six Arabs, who con- 
trive on all occasions to make as much noise as 
would do for sixty Englishmen. Wake up and 
find the sun high in the south-east; our sails 
but half filled with a fickle zephyr; the sea 
smooth and bright; and the mountains of Musa 
or Moses rising grander than ever as we draw 
a few miles off shore. The highest summits 
cannot be less than twenty miles, as the crow 
flies, from the harbour of Tur; and the alti- 
tude, by trigonometrical measurement, about 
eight thousand three hundred feet, of barren, 
rugged, red and grey granite, shattered into 
masses and splintered into pinnacles that might 
overawe the imagination of an Alpine hunter, 
— what then must have been the terror of the 
bewildered host of Israel, the broken-spirited 
bondsmen of Egypt, when they suddenly 
changed the level plains, fertile fields, and 
bounteous river of the land of Goshen, for the 
parching drought, tremendous crags, and 
cloud-piercing peaks of this sublime volcanic 
chaos, blazing with the unearthly light or 



236 



NOZRANI IN 



wrapped in the darkness palpable that disclosed 
or concealed the brightness of the presence of 
the Lord their God! And when the people 
saw, "they removed and stood afar off, and 
they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and 
we will hear; but let not God speak with us, 
lest we die." 

The afternoon of the fourth day from leaving 
Tur, finds us at anchor in the roads of Cosseir, 
with no incident of voyage beyond the variety 
of a hot Khamseen puff from the south-west, 
blowing us in spite of ourselves into the Gulf 
of Akabah, and glad enough too to weather the 
ugly rocks of the Has Mohammad. The short 
tumbling sea drenches and pitches us about in 
helpless plight, our one-masted rig not being 
adapted for beating up against a head wind; 
however, it is an ill wind that blows no good, 
and the eastern view of the Djebel Musa, 
grander and wilder than the west, was an equi- 
valent for being driven out of our course some 
twenty or thirty miles, with a vivid perception 
of being possibly swamped. The men managed 
very well, keeping the boat's head to the sea 
with a close-hauled sheet, till she received a 
perilous thump that we all took as a friendly 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 237 

hint to down with the helm, slacken off, and 
run the way we were told; discretion being., 
with the wise men of the east as well as the 
west, the better part of valour- 

On issuing from the western branch or arm 
of Suez, the Eed Sea of Scripture, never more 
than twelve or fifteen miles across, we suddenly 
emerge into the broad expanse of the Arabian 
Gulf — a real sea, looking as rough and stern as 
the wide Atlantic, with no shore in sight round 
half the range of the compass. At the top of 
the Gulf of Akabah, into which we look for an 
hour or two, were the neighbouring ports of 
Elath and Ezion-geber, whence the ships of 
Solomon, or of his friend King Hiram of Tyre, 
used to sail to Ophir and Tarshish for " gold 
and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks" — " Hiram 
sent him ships and servants that had knowledge 
of the sea to Elath, at the sea side in the land of 
Edom," Which way or how did King Hiram 
send the ships? Surely by water; so either 
they must have crossed from the Nile by a 
navigable canal, or have sailed round the con- 
tinent of Africa by the Pillars of Hercules and 
the great Southern Cape. This latter suppo- 
sition would probably startle even the most 



I 



238 



XOZRAXI IN 



determined "laudator temporis acti;" and per- 
haps the canal route will be adopted as the 
true version, rather in deference to Hobsoji's 
argument than any other*. Where was Ophir ? 
— nobody knows. Where was Tarshish? — 
nobody knows. Possibly the same place under 
different names; Madagascar, Borneo, or Cey- 
lon. Of two facts only are we distinctly in- 
formed with respect to Tarshish: the precious 
metals w^ere there in great abundance, and it 
was a great way off. " Silver was not anything 
accounted of in the days of Solomon" — (e es- 
teemed in Jerusalem as stones." "All the 
vessels in the house of the forest of Lebanon 
were of pure gold." And the treasure ships 
came to Eloth " once every three years," which 
would allow good fifteen months for the out- 
ward, and as many for the homeward voyage, 
with three in harbour at either destination: 
allowing ample time for the slowest logs ever 
under canvass to go whither any theory may 
please to send them. No doubt, then, King 

* May we render (2 Chron. viii.) yishlach lo Hooram, 
a Huram supplied him," i.e., built him ships, viz., at Eloth, 
which would tally with 1 Kings ix.; and remove all diffi- 
culty ? 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



239 



Hiram's South-sea fleet in the days of Solomon 
cruised as regularly for their golden cargo as 
the Spanish galleons of Acapulco in later times ; 
and Eloth, at the top of this gulf, would be the 
best rendezvous for the servants and camels of 
the great king, to conduct priceless treasures 
across the desert to the capital of the monarch, 
Aff whose presence all the kings of the earth 
sought," to see the wealth and hear the wisdom 
that it had pleased God to gift him withal. 

It must have been an extraordinary and 
perilous navigation for these "men who had 
knowledge of the sea," to be always creeping 
along the coast of the Indian Ocean; and yet, 
without the mariner's compass, they could never 
venture upon a broad and trackless course; 
even we of the present day, with all our mar- 
vellous resources, should know nothing of half 
the globe, had not somebody luckily found out 
that a poised needle rubbed with a magnet 
points towards the pole ; and so it is that "great 
events from little causes spring" — events at 
least which we think great, compared with 
causes we think little, though doubtless, to 
clearer vision, each to other duly dove-tailed 
and adapted. 



240 



NOZRAXI IN 



Cosseir, or Kosseir, is the only port worthy 
of the name on the western shore of the Red 
Sea from Suez to Babel-mandel, the famous 
Berenice, artificially formed by the Ptolemies 
more *than two hundred miles to the souths 
being now neglected and ruined. Nothing can 
exceed the barren, rugged desolation of the 
coast we have been sailing along, — sharp, steep 
rocks line and guard the iron-bound frontier 
as far as we can sweep with a glass. The 
eye, dazzled by the glaring sand, and innu- 
merable reefs of rich red and white coral, looks 
in vain for repose. Why the sea should have 
been called Yam Siif, or Sea of Weeds, is a 
mystery; for no weeds of any sort are visible 
either above or below — nothing like vegetation, 
unless the ramification of coral branches, which 
we often see at a great depth through the trans- 
parent water. The opposite shores of Asia, a 
hundred miles distant, are of course invisible. 
The roadstead, protected by sheltering rocks 
against the more prevalent northerly winds, is 
quite open to the south and south-east. It does 
not appear that a vessel of a frigate^s draught 
could find much safety in stress of weather, as 
the water deepens so gradually that boats are 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 241 

employed to carry the cargoes of corn to vessels 
in the offing. The only considerable commerce 
now carried on is in the export of corn to 
Mecca, and the import of coffee from Mokah. 
The traffic of the place receives an impulse* 
at certain seasons, from the resort of a mul- 
titude of pilgrims to the Prophet's tomb; but it 
might, under an active and enlightened govern- 
ment, become, by its position as a link between 
Africa and Asia, a mart of great importance. 
It is generally expected that our communica- 
tion with India will soon be carried on by the 
route of Cosseir, rather than Suez, avoiding the 
dangerous navigation of the narrow gulf. The 
present town, judging by the European stan- 
dard, is a paltry place, a confused jumble of 
flat-roofed houses, overtopped by an old light- 
house tower, and the dome of a mosque; all 
surrounded with an embattled wall, outside of 
which, at 'some distance, stands a square stone 
fortress flanked by four round towers built by 
the Caliphs. As at Suez, not a blade of any- 
thing green to relieve the brazen glare; the 
dry wilderness in all its unmitigated blazing 
desolation reigns supreme to the very walls of 
the Arab castle, which looks as if it wguld soon 



242 



NOZRANI IN 



take fire and burn like a limekiln. The drink- 
able water is brackish and scarce. The . only 
boon that nature grants to this dreary region, 
is a supply of fish, probably inexhaustible, 
though now but little in demand. The shells 
on the shore are so various and beautiful, 
that I filled a bag half a dozen times, only to 
empty it as often in favour of more brilliant 
candidates for the honour of a visit to England; 
but the collection cost me dear in blistered and 
wounded feet. 

Give a grand parting feast to the reiss and 
his crew, in the court of a tumble-down old 
place belonging to a friend of his; the enter- 
tainment principally consisting of savoury veni- 
son from the desert, broiled in steaks upon a 
camel-dung fire, and cut from the haunches of a 
poor antelope or gazelle, brought in and offered 
for sale by a swarthy, yellow-tattered, eagle- 
eyed son of Esau, armed with a truculent, 
ricketty, long-barrelled musket, looking as if it 
would soon fly in the face of its master, who 
however stalked off well content with himself, 
his weapon, and a few piastres, with a baksheesh 
of powder and ball. A payment of seven hun- 
dred piastres, about seven pounds sterling, clears 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



243 



all scores for the voyage from Suez to Cosseir, 
a distance of about three hundred and fifty 
miles, occupying, inclusive of our stay at the 
village of Tur, just one week. Coffee and 
pipes conclude the regale, and exchanging pre- 
sents of a black Nubian club and a best Brum- 
magem knife, the reiss and I part with mutual 
demonstrations of regard, salaming one another 
with "a peace be unto thee," each with an 
oriental flourish of the right hand, touching 
successively his breast, lips and forehead. No 
men could have behaved better, or been more 
true to their trust, than the fine fellows of his 
crew, who worked their little craft like a 
gentleman's yacht, in the Red-sea gale off Has 
Mohammad. 

The sun rises and sets with such an utter 
absence of all the accustomed distinctions of 
time and seasons, that without a Mordan pen- 
cil-case I should be reduced to Robinson Cru- 
soe's notched stick to know the recurrence of 
the seventh day, as marked for a welcome in- 
terval of rest and reflection. 



R 2 



2U 



XOZRAXI IX 



DESERT EOUTE. 

FROM COSSEIR TO THE XILE. 

The dawn of Monday. April \lth 9 finds us 
once more camel-mounted — Omar, myself, and 
three Arabs. — swinging our way as before 
through the dry desert, steering due west 
for the waters of the Xile. into which we 
rush and revel by anticipation, though a hun- 
dred miles of arid wilderness yet He between 
us and the cool plunge for which we pant. 
Two hours' march, or about two leagues' 
journey, bring us through wild gloomy valleys 
to the springs of Ambagi, alas ! as salt and 
bitter as those of Marah : and we have no 
resource but the tepid brackish supply of our 
dripping goat-skin. Still we are indebted to 
the wells for the only sight of verdure since 
our departure from the port of Tur; about 
half a dozen palms form a little oasis of life 
and shade, which cheers the eye in the wide 
waste of desolation, "like a good deed in a 
naughty world/' and we halt for a delicious 
hour in the shadow of their tufted umbrella 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



245 



tops, before we pursue our ascending route 
through the perpendicular calcareous rocks, 
that gradually rise higher and approach nearer 
as we march on towards Beer Beder, distant 
another hour, where the water is drinkable. 
The road, i. e. the broad level of sandy surface, 
winding its way between lofty rocks and hills, 
is good enough for wheeled carriages, and 
forms the grand caravan route from Ghenneh 
to Mecca. We never halt after leaving Beder 
for eight hours, keeping the invariable camel- 
pace of two and a half miles per hour, winding 
through scattered masses of magnificent rock 
of all colours — white, red, and green — quartz, 
porphyry, and a kind of marble looking very 
like verd antique. One cannot help thinking 
that these prodigious stores of beautiful stone, 
close upon a broad smooth way leading to the 
Nile, may have supplied imperial Rome with 
the material for its gorgeous temples, the frag- 
ments of which still furnish shafts and capitals 
and cornices to the Basilicas of the Papal city. 

Pass the ruins of an old Saracenic fort, and 
encamp for the night under a huge rock at El- 
Adoute, after a day's march of more than thirty 
miles, which would have been less fatiguing had 



246 



NOZRANI IN 



we journeyed after sunset ; but I was unwilling 
to give up the view of this extraordinary desert 
defile, through which, perhaps, before many 
years elapse, English travellers may be whirled 
at railroad speed on their way to India. All 
beyond the little bivouac dark and silent ; but 
our fire crackles and blazes merrily, till subsi- 
ding into a red glow, we cook our rice and 
gazelle steaks to admiration, with cayenne and 
lemon-juice, the evening air delightfully cool 
and fresh — the stars bright and numberless — 
the sand dry, pure, and flinty — and the freedom 
of the primaeval desert expanding and exhila- 
rating the soul of a town-cooped son of civili- 
zation, — little accustomed to any solitude but 
the loneliness of a unit in the million, or any 
wilderness but the boundless Babel of brick 
and mortar. 

Omar rouses me from deep sleep with a whis- 
pered notice of hyenas near the tent, allured 
no doubt from the mountain by the savoury 
smell of our broiled venison. The hope of 
bagging one or two of these grinning brutes 
spoils our night's rest, as we lie in watchful 
silence for a shot, with as keen a sensation of 
sport as ever gratified a Highland deer-stalker ; 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



247 



we gain, however, nothing else for our pains ; 
both fire at once at something real or supposed 
in the dark — the flash lights up the rocks in 
Salvator Rosa style — the balls whizzing through 
the air plunge into the sand — the echoes roll 
and rattle through cliff and crag, startling the 
night owl with mimic thunder ; but no death 
growl to reward our listening ears, though next 
morning we find by the track ample proof of 
more than one strong-clawed ruffian having 
prowled about us ; and they no doubt frequent 
this caravan route on the look-out for carrion, 
as we have already passed two or three fresh 
well-picked skeletons of fallen camels. 

The second day's journey continues in unbro- 
ken monotony, over a surface generally smooth 
and broad enough for the march of an army, 
through valleys of lofty rock, with here and 
there a ruined tower, and no vegetation but 
low r scattered shrubs, which serve as fodder for 
the camels, who seem made for the wilderness 
and the wilderness made for them. Nowhere 
else can they walk tvith such ease and safety as 
on the sand. The terrors of heat, hunger, and 
thirst are no terrors to them ; their thick scaly 
hide protects them against the scorching sun — 



248 



NOZRANI IN 



tlieir fleshy hump is supposed to be a stock of 
nourishing food that exempts them from hun- 
ger till, after many days' privation, it dwindles 
away, again to grow when provender is plen- 
tiful — and the well-known reservoir of fresh 
water in a second stomach secures them for 
an equal time from the more fearful agony of 
burning thirst. Occasionally traversing a patch 
of rough hilly ground, they lose their steady 
continuous pace, and stumble about like over- 
driven oxen upon town pavement. We meet 
during the day more than one string steering 
their single-file course with a cargo of wheat 
for the Red Sea, and our halting places have 
been lately occupied with parties of jaded, 
ragged pilgrims, on their return from the tomb 
of Mecca, — a pilgrimage in which many hun- 
dreds, and sometimes thousands, annually leave 
their bones by the way-side ; but to be a hadj, 
is a pious ambition that the prospect of suffer- 
ing cannot quell, — sacred water and holy dust 
from the shrine of Mohammad are highly es- 
teemed memorials of the honoured achievement, 
and the toil-worn, sun-scorched votary of the 
Prophet is everywhere received with congratu- 
lation and respect. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



249 



The third day is one of parched and panting 
misery: the Khamseen blows furiously from 
the south-west, sweeping the red sand in lurid 
clouds that deface and darken the sky, to the 
likeness of a vast canopy of hot copper. Eyes, 
mouth, ears, and nostrils are stuffed almost to 
blindness and suffocation by the tornado of fiery 
sand; even the camels seem inclined to lie down 
in despair, and we halt continually in sheer 
exhaustion of body and mind, to seek shelter 
under the lee of the poor beasts, who stretch 
their long necks on the ground and growl in 
dismal discouragement. The day before, we 
had achieved thirty-five miles, in good condi- 
tion and high spirits, from El-Adoute to El- 
Laghoot ; but now, twelve hours' incessant 
struggle scarcely suffice to bring us to the wells 
of El- Ghieta, hardly five leagues from our pre- 
vious bivouac; where we do, however, at length 
arrive, in thankfulness of heart, though with 
parched throast, cracked skins, and blood-shot 
eyes. The thermometer, under the shadow of 
the camel, stood in the afternoon at 110° Fah- 
renheit. The bodily suffering and mental dis- 
quietude produced by this horrid hurricane, 
can scarcely be exaggerated. It seemed that 



NOZRANI IN 



further exposure for an hour or two would have 
left us all dead and buried for ever in the desert 3 
under a column of whirling, withering, and 
blasting sand. 

Pass a sweltering night near the walls of 
an old white-domed caravansera and mosque, 
built for pilgrim devotion. But we pitch no 
tent and kindle no fire; all our earthly wants 
are reduced to the two elements of air and 
water; for the first we gape and gasp like fish 
cast high and dry; but no stranded fish, re- 
stored by a kind hand to its native stream, ever 
revelled in the enjoyment of water more grate- 
fully than our poor sand-saturated, skin-cracked 
company, in the three springs of the thrice- 
blessed Ghieta. We could not absolutely get 
into the wells, but we spared them in no other 
way. A tippler never found so many reasons 
for drinking wine as we had for drinking water 
— thirst in all the tenses, past, present, and 
future. And when men and camels can drink 
no longer, Omar makes me his friend for ever, 
by pouring a goat-skin-full over my head, which 
he wraps with soaked towels to keep up con- 
stant evaporation, though at the price of 
having one's wet skin as rough and gritty as 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



251 



scouring-paper, under successive layers of 
close-sticking sand, driven in red clouds fast 
and furious before the wind, which blows itself 
out after a twenty-four hours' puff, leaving us 
in possession of little better than half our 
senses. 

The next day's march reaches Beer -el- Bar, 
a distance of about twenty miles, gradually 
descending through a more open valley, and 
emerging from the wild, rocky scenery lately 
traversed. We observe a number of locusts 
during this journey, but not in the destructive 
sun-obscuring clouds which render them the 
fearful scourge so often alluded to in the Old 
Testament. They appear to be natives of the 
desert, and are only brought into Egypt by an 
east wind, where they sometimes destroy, in a 
few days, every green blade in the track they 
traverse, skimming along the surface of the 
ground from perch to perch, and devouring in- 
discriminately every herb they light upon. The 
odious thing resembles a large, spotted, red-and- 
black, double-winged grasshopper, about three 
inches or less in length, with the two hind legs 
working like hinged springs of immense strength 
and elasticity. As the east wind brings them, 



252 



xozeaxi m 



so the west wind carries them away^ and man 
with all his contrivance can do nothing to de- 
fend himself against the overwhelming; inva- 
sion: for if every inhabitant were to destroy a 
bushel, the diminution would never be felt or 
noticed. 

It seems singular that these horrible grylli 
should be born and bred in the barren wastes 
of Africa and Arabia, where they find so little 
of the green food for which they show such a 
ravenous craving in richer regions. But both 
cold and damp appear equally unfavourable to 
their propagation^ — one fact among many which 
may reconcile us to our own climate, as one 
week's portentous visit might destroy the har- 
vest of a year. And they are even more fatal 
to man in death than life, from the poisonous 
stench of their corrupting myriads. The most 
fearful record of locust ravage occurs in the 
Bible (Exodus x.) 5 where they are brought by 
an east wind for a special providential judg- 
ment., and carried back by a " mighty strong 
west wind which cast them into the Red Sea:" 
— "They went up over all the land of Egypt: 
very grievous were they: before them there 
were no such locusts^ neither after them shall 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



253 



be such." But even in modern times, and in 
European countries, whole regions have been 
made desolate by their destroying flight. They 
are still eaten by the Arabs, who fry them in 
olive oil; and they were lawful food, we know, 
in the Levitical code, as instanced in the case 
of John the Baptist in the wilderness — "Ye 
may eat of every flying creeping thing that 
goeth upon all four, which have legs above 
their feet to leap withal upon the earth." (Lev. 
xi. 21.) Nothing short of a scientific descrip- 
tion could convey more accurately the nature 
of "the locust after his kind." Our version 
renders arbeh, "locust," and solyam, "bald 
locust;" but the distinction is probably not un- 
derstood: those I saw had dark brown heads, 
the size of small peas, with bright black pro- 
jecting eyes, a pair of fine horns or feelers, and 
an upper and under pair of wings, dark brown 
and light transparent green respectively. 

Beetles are also very common in the desert, 
droning in one's ears on their blind flight, and 
often blundering against one's face as the sun 
goes down — the famous scarabcei of Egypt, im- 
mortalized in sacred semblance of all sizes on 
the everlasting granite of Syene. The beetle 



254 



NOZRANI IN 



is associated with the locust in the Mosaic law 
as legitimate eating, though sufficiently repul- 
sive to our notions of taste 9 the standard of 
which is, however, even to a proverb, an im- 
palpable offspring of fancy, eluding legislation 
as it defies dispute. 

The only birds we have seen or heard, are 
vultures, owls, and the desert partridge, rising 
in coveys across our path close to the camels' 
feet, and, like all other living things in this 
region, frequenting the neighbourhood of the 
wells where we halt. 

The traveller from Cosseir to the Nile is now 
considered tolerably secure from molestation on 
the part of the wandering lords of the wilder- 
ness, as they both fear and respect the Basha, 
with whom the safety of the European in his 
dominions is a subject of just pride. Many of 
the Bedouin sheyks are occasionally in his pay 
for military service, — they and their men well 
mounted, armed with spear, sabre, and gun, 
sitting in deep saddles, with feet tucked up 
and supported on enormous square iron shovels 
for stirrups, the sharp corners of which act as 
very effective spurs. They never lose their 
seat, and can pick up a dropped spear at full 



EGYPT AND SYEIA, 



255 



gallop. The bit is extremely severe, enabling 
them, at a moment's warning, to pull a horse 
on his haunches when at the top of his speed; 
but for this very reason the horse gallops with 
more reserve than our own, keeping his legs 
under him in the expectation of a sudden and 
peremptory check. They seldom trot, know- 
ing but little medium between full speed and 
a lounging walk. The wild shout of the rider, 
as he darts by with lance in rest, is sometimes 
startling; they scamper up and down rocky 
ground with perfect confidence, and take pride 
in astonishing a Frank by suddenly pulling up 
within spear's length, firing a salute in his face, 
and petitioning for a baksheesh of powder. 
Their half-naked body and limbs are blackened 
by constant exposure, but the head is usually 
well covered with a close-fitting cap, frequently 
twisted round with a coil of rope — a subject of 
sarcasm to those who think their necks more 
worthy of the halter; the yellow cloth wrap- 
per and hooded burnoos of white wool are 
thrown on in a negligent picturesque way, 
and their aspect altogether is that of fierce 
and fearless freebooters; elastic, sinewy, and 
fleshless as their fellow -denizens of the desert, 



256 



NOZRANI IN 



whom they resemble in more ways than one, — 
the formidable, long-legged outlawed locust, 
avToxdcov, of their dry and dreary but free and 
boundless heritage. 

At the little village of Beer-el-Bar we issue 
from the lonely valley of the wilderness, which 
expands into an open and level country inun- 
ted in autumn by the Mle^s broad waters, upon 
whose fresh stream, flowing between groves and 
fields and human habitations, we now look with 
renewed life and eager expectation. Five hours' 
march from the night's bivouac brings us to the 
town of Ghenneh on the afternoon of our fifth 
day from the Red Sea, having averaged some- 
thing more than twenty miles per diem. Turn- 
ing neither to the right nor the left, pausing 
neither for question nor answer, we keep straight 
onward under the strong impulse of one absorb- 
ing, concentrated, longing desire for the cool 
flood, into which we all rush pell-mell, floun- 
dering in uncontrolled ecstasy of delight only 
to be felt or understood after three weeks' ex- 
posure to the broiling sun, blazing sand, and 
reflecting rocks of the Red Sea desert, with a 
limited supply of bitter or brackish water 
finishing off with a twenty-four hours' shrivel- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



257 



ling under the breath of the Khamseen, blowing 
like the blast of a fiery furnace seven times 
heated. 

Ghenneh, or Khenneh, the ancient Coptos, is a 
place that might have appeared paltry enough 
under other circumstances, but, contrasted with 
the silent solitude to which we have been accus- 
tomed, it seems teeming with life and humming 
with the mingled sounds of a busy multitude. 
The houses are as usual built of little better 
than mud w T alls with flat roofs; the streets, mere 
narrow lanes, encumbered with camels and mer- 
chandise trading between Egypt and Arabia. 
The pottery of Ghenneh is far famed, formed 
of a porous clay peculiar to the neighbourhood, 
which, by allowing the water constantly to eva- 
porate on a dewy surface, maintains a deliciously 
cool temperature, further promoted by placing 
the bottles in a current of air. The water of the 
Nile thus freshened, is probably the sweetest 
and softest in the world, with just a sufficient 
dash of iron to give a tonic property, under 
favour of which one may drink ad libitum with- 
out risk or inconvenience. 



S 



258 



NOZBANI IN 



SAIL UP THE NILE. 

The Red Sea navigation has enabled m to 
avoid the repetition of four hundred miles of 
river track, which we shall now pursue for the 
first time on our return to Lower Egypt ; but at 
present the course lies southward to Syene, on 
board a very handsome boat or kanjeh. for which 
I pay fifteen hundred piastres (£15) to take us 
to the first cataract and back to Cairo, waiting 
wherever we please at the rate of ten piastres 
per diem. The crew of nine men besides the 
reiss are chiefly Nubians, black as ebony and 
beautifully formed both in limb and feature, 
working their passage homeward from the me- 
tropolis. The craft is sixty feet long : two deck 
cabins aft, two masts, and prodigiously tall lat- 
teen sails : she belonged to a Bey of distinction 
at Cairo, and is quite a yacht, after a fashion, 
though not altogether free from rats, cock- 
roaches, and other vermin, to eject which we 
sink her for twelve hours, while we spend a day 
across the river, a mile or two lower down, at the 
temples of Dendera or Tentyra, the most perfect 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 259 

because least ancient of these marvellous and 
mysterious works of Egyptian wisdom, about 
which I have little to say, as a tolerable en- 
graving, and plenty may be had, gives a better 
idea of them than any number of written 
pages. The date of the temple of Dendera is 
not known better than that of the rest, but 
is presumed to be later than the invasion of 
Cambyses, B. C. 500, from its having escaped 
the Persian's destroying hand, as well as from 
its being of a lighter and more elegant order 
than those of Thebes. It was dedicated to Isis, 
the Egyptian Juno, and the walls are covered 
with a profusion of sculptured hieroglyphics of 
all sizes — Isis, Apis, Horus, Osiris, the hawk- 
headed personage, the scarabaeus beetle rolling 
his ball, the winged serpent and globe, and so 
on and so forth, to an extent of multiplication 
and complication that utterly baffles the eye 
and defies the discrimination of an ordinary 
observer. As to what these things meant, one 
has only a remote notion, and life is too short 
to make it worth while to pursue an inquiry 
where the data are so vague, and the conclu- 
sion so doubtful. There is a certain undefined 
impression of awe and wonder at these myste- 

S 2 



260 



NOZRANI IN 



rious, gigantic, and most ancient monuments of 
human handiwork. One admires the bold lines 
and noble proportions of the mass, as well as 
the minute intricacy and accuracy of the figures 
and characters, which no doubt once told their 
own tale to those initiated in their language of 
conventional forms ; but having thus far mused 
and marvelled, all is done and said and felt 
that can be done or said or felt, unless we are 
able and willing to pursue the recondite study 
under the auspices of a Young, a Champollion, 
or a Wilkinson. 

u Ach G-ott ! die Kunst ist lang ! 
Und kurz ist miser Leben. 
Und eh 'man nur den halben Weg erreicht 
Muss wohl ein armer Teufel sterben." 

There is no connecting electric chain upon 
which the imagination of a modern Englishman 
may traverse in a moment the interval between 
his own time and the epoch of Isis and Osiris; 
no history, no association, no interest ; and it 
avails little to profess what one does not feeL 
The grey ivy-mantled ruins of an old abbey 
in England, with the wind sighing or the 
moon gleaming through the broken tracery of 
a pointed arch, impress the mind with a deep 



EGYPT AND SYPvIA. 



261 



feeling of religion, poetry, and beauty, as the 
thoughts wander back to byegone times and 
scenes that our fathers have declared to us 
— times and scenes of good and evil, light 
and shade, wisdom and warning — here we are 
at home, and may find and read if we will 
" sermons in stones." But not so in the ruins 
of Egypt ; all is grim, harsh, and silent, un- 
softened, unhallowed, and unhonoured. Time 
and violence have done their ruthless work, 
without remorse and without regret, upon the 
monstrous monuments of impure idolatry, cor- 
rupting priestcraft, and grovelling superstition 
— no green mantle of modest ivy to veil the 
nakedness of desolation — no sweet wild flowers 
waving in fragrant beauty to the breeze — no- 
thing to meet the eye but hard, stern, glaring, 
and gigantic memorials of man's power wasted 
and abused in wickedness and folly, now 
deservedly defiled and disgraced by dust, 
stench and rubbish, the refuse of the squalid 
Arab, the unclean jackal, and the odious bat, 
a filthy cloaque of abomination within and with- 
out. "And lie said, Go in and behold the 
wicked abominations that they do here. So 
I went in and saw ; and beheld every form of 



262 



NOZKANI IN 



creeping things, and abominable beasts, and 
all the idols of the house of Egypt, pourtrayed 
upon the walls round about." (Ezek. viii. 9 ; 
xx. 7.) 

Some say that the temples of Dendera are 
of the Greek period or dynasty of the Ptole- 
mies, mere imitations of the true Pharaoh order. 
Certain it is that Greek inscriptions are clearly 
discerned on the attic of the great portico; 
but this proves no more than the frequent dis- 
covery of Roman coins of the empire ; nothing 
in either case beyond the fact of Greek and 
Roman having been both in their turn lords 
of the soil: whether there be really intrinsic 
marks of decadence and servile copy, "this 
deponent sayeth not." 

The grand porch of the great temple consists 
of twenty-four lofty columns in rows of six, 
four deep, three on each side the doorway ; the 
shafts covered with hieroglyphics, and the capi- 
tals sculptured on the four sides into heads of 
the goddess, topped with extraordinary square 
blocks representing various scenes of Osiris and 
Isis nursing Horus, and so forth ; the entabla- 
ture very rich in winged serpents and globes, 
hawk-headed figures and vultures, cum multis 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



263 



aliis. The height of each column from the 
plinth to the abacus is about fifty-five feet, the 
entablature nearly twenty more, and the breadth 
of the whole pronaon nearly one hundred and 
sixty. The roof is covered with the mud-baked 
ruins of an Arab deserted village, which nei- 
ther is nor ever w T as a sweet or lovely Auburn; 
the whole place choked with sand, rubbish, 
and fusty dust — a curious contrast of magnifi- 
cence and wretchedness — an imposing and mys- 
terious mass of mighty architecture, closely 
covered with elaborate, grotesque, unintelligible, 
and not always decent hieroglyphics, mytholo- 
gical, astronomical, emblematical, and fanciful 
— men's bodies with birds' heads and beasts 5 
heads and fishes' heads, and heads that seem to 
belong to neither fish, flesh, nor fowl — snakes 
with legs, beetles with hands, and an infinite 
variety of sphinxes, bulls, dogs, geese, ducks, 
and rabbits, that are very fine on the principle 
of ignotum pro magnifico. They say when the 
Sepoys were brought from India to Egypt to 
oppose the French in the late war, that they 
recognized their own gods in these multifarious 
emblems and figures, and worshipped in this 
temple according to the faith of their fathers. 



264 



NOZRAET IIS T 



Strabo and Pliny tell us the inhabitants of 
Tentyra were famed for their hatred and con- 
tempt of the crocodiles, which all the other 
Egyptians worshipped, and that they raised 
temples to Venus, Isis, and Typhon. (Strabo, 
xvii. 44; Pliny, viii. 25.) The famous plani- 
sphere, zodiac, or whatever it really was, that 
the French discovered, they took away with 
them to Paris. A few graceful palms still cast 
their shadows on the extreme verge of the 
inundated land, reminding us of the noble 
Juvenal in his exile, and his 

te umbrosse Tentyra palmae," 

see Juvenal xv. ; as also for his particular ac- 
count of the famous and terrible feud between 
the people of Coptos or Ghenneh and the Ten- 
tyrians touching the above-mentioned crocodiles* 

"Inter finitimos vetns atque antiqua simultas, 
Immortale odium et numquam sanabile vulnus 
Ardet adhuc Coptos et Tentyra." 

Once more upon the broad waters of the 
Nile, with a strong breeze from the north blow- 
ing fresh health and life into our heated lungs 
and languid blood; the gallant boat heeling 
gunwale under as she rushes snoring through 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



265 



the ripple, with a press of snowy canvass that 
soon leaves her competitors far astern ; the sheet 
of the huge mainsail entrusted to a gigantic all- 
but-naked Nubian, ycleped Jacob, more than 
six feet high and nearly two across the shoul- 
ders, black, smooth, and polished as ebony, with 
his muscles and sinews in action like the lunging 
gladiator, as he stretches himself to windward 
hauling upon the rope, his feet planted on the 
lee bulwark, through which the bubbling foam- 
ing water rushes and dances gaily to the eye and 
sweetly to the ear. One condition in the con- 
tract signed and sealed with the reiss, is to the 
effect that the sheet shall never be belayed by 
day or night, as the navigation is often endan- 
gered by sudden puffs and squalls, capsizing 
the boat at a moment's warning. 

My first impression upon seeing the Mle, 
after crossing the desert of the Red Sea, was 
surprise at finding it so wide and brimming, 
five hundred miles from the Delta, apparently 
a larger and fuller river than at Cairo. But a 
moment's consideration is enough to discover 
why the Egyptian flood is an exception to the 
river rule, " vires acquirit eundo," — it has no 
tributaries^ but rolls its solitary course for fif- 



266 



NOZKANI IN 



teen hundred miles, from Sennaar to the sea, 
indebted for its deep-flowing grandeur to no 
sources but its own — the fountains of Ethiopia, 
or the clouds of heaven. As then it gains 
nothing from tributary streams in its downward 
channel, so it of course loses much by evapo- 
ration and irrigation, which unusual and unex- 
pected result must have added a new zest of 
mystery to the famous problem, "caput Nili 
quserere;" the solution of which interested all 
the statesmen, sages, and warriors of antiquity, 
from Sesostris downwards. A mighty and lonely 
river, gaining breadth and depth as they as- 
cended its stream, and subject to annual in- 
undations far and wide, regulated to a day 
by some invisible and unintelligible influence, 
might well arrest the attention and rouse the 
curiosity of an Alexander or a Csesar, neither 
of them likely to be content with the poetic 
veto on popular inquiry, 

"Nec licuit populis parvum te Nile videre." 

The begininng of the yearly inundation upon 
which the prosperity and very existence of 
Egypt depends, is marked by a phenomenon 
that seems at first to threaten a fatal and uni- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



267 



versal calamity; no less than the poisioning 
or corrupting of the very river itself, which 
suddenly turns red, yellow, and green, with a 
stinking putridity that renders it altogether 
undrinkable. This fearful state of things, how- 
ever, lasts but a few days; the floating abomi- 
nations pass on, and the river, though swollen 
and turbid, resumes its character and aspect 
of beneficence. The extraordinary and sudden 
change is attributed to the cleansing of vast 
stagnant lakes and pools in Abyssinia, which 
during the dry season evaporate to the consist- 
ency of vegetating mud, at length to be swept 
away by descending torrents of tropical rain 
which rush from a hundred hills till they con- 
centrate their force in the one deep channel of 
the rising river, about to pour down waters of 
life and abundance to expecting millions on its 
flooded banks. A little almond paste is said to 
be a common and effectual means of purifying 
a bottle of the corrupted water; but as the 
season and duration of the defilement are well 
known, the inhabitants of course provide a 
previous supply of the Bahr-el-helloo, or the 
Sweet Kiver, as they emphatically and fondly 
call it. 



268 



XOZRAXI IN 



CEOCODILES. 

The first day's sail affords a fine view of a 
group of anxiously-expected crocodiles, three 
of them basking on a sand-bank about noon in 
the full blaze of the sun, looking at a distance 
like scattered trunks of palm-trees, but through 
Dollond's glass, appearing what they really are — 
huge, formidable, lizard-like monsters, cased in 
cap-a-pie green armour, furnished with tremen- 
dous rows of teeth, and the largest apparently 
measuring from tip to tip between twenty and 
thirty feet, snoosing luxuriously with curled tails 
on the edge of the water, ready at a moment's 
notice to wallop into the deep stream, which 
they accordingly do, to our great disappoint- 
ment, before we can have the pleasure of ratt- 
ling a bullet against their scaly carcass. How- 
ever, the crew say we shall have many a good 
chance when returning against the wind, with 
furled sails and lowered masts, the sight of 
which alarms the mighty and magnificent rep- 
tile, conscious that the approach of man bodes 
him no good, if caught napping on terra firma. 
That they really are, when in the water, both 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



269 



fierce and dangerous to man and beast is fully 
believed^ if not clearly ascertained; active they 
certainly are, rushing and diving with a sweep 
of their terrible tails at a flashing speed, con- 
trasting strongly with their slow and clumsy 
crawl upon the sand. One assuredly would not 
like to meet such a brute in his own element, 
and our crew, who are altogether of an am- 
phibious nature, never go into the deep pools 
where they believe them to be lurking. We 
see several more on our way to Thebes, but 
none so grand as the first group, the longest 
of which must have been at least twenty-five 
feet. Fire several shots, some of them suc- 
cessful as to the mark, but thrown away for 
anything but a salute, a leaden bullet being no 
better than a pellet of bread against their 
knightly panoply, either flattening or glancing 
with perfect innocence on the impenetrable 
jointless mail of the great leviathan*, "whose 

* The leviatlian of Scripture appears to be any great 
monster joined together, as the root of the word signifies. 
The Psalmist could scarcely mean a whale, as the oily 
monarch is unknown in the Mediterranean : " There go 
the ship-fish, and there is that leviatlian whom Thou hast 
made." The antithesis of the mighty lonely leviathan, 
the prowling lion of the deep, seeking whom he may de- 
vour, and the graceful sportive nautili, spreading their fairy 



270 



XOZEAXI IN 



scales are his pride; shut up together as with a 
close seal; they are joined one to another; they 
stick together that they cannot be sundered." 
The patriarch may have had the crocodile of 
Egypt in view when he thus speaks of the 
scales and the u teeth terrible round about." 

The prophet Ezekiel represents the dynasty 
of the Pharaohs under the image of ffc the great 
dragon, that lies in the midst of his rivers/* 
" which hath said, My river is mine own;" and 
no one can look upon these magnificent mon- 
sters, basking upon their sandy islands ce in the 
midst of the river," without accepting them as 
an aptly striking illustration of Egypt's kingly 
pride. It is by no means true that they cannot 
easilv turn round : for when alarmed or excited, 
they twist and lash about nimbly enough to 
convince any neighbouring naturalist that their 
vertebrae are thoroughly articulated, even to the 
tip of the tail, — they appear indeed from choice 
to lie in a curve rather than a straight line. 

I was once for several minutes within less 



sails in regatta squadron to the breeze, is unluckily lost in 
our version by the substitution of ships for ship-fish, though 
the context sufficiently proves the royal bard of Israel is 
singing of the animate creation of God's will, to whom " He 
gives their meat in due season." (Psalm civ.) 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



271 



than twenty yards of two very noble individuals 
of the genus, stretched slumbering and baking 
in the sun, on a shoal of gravel in the middle of 
the Nile ; one of them at least three times the 
length of a man, horribly scaled, clawed, and 
fanged in the grim reality of the close view, 
which the tall black Jacob had volunteered 
to procure by dint of cautious manoeuvring — 
wading through shallows, skulking under sand- 
banks, and keeping carefully to leeward till 
we reached our hiding-place, half a mile dis- 
tant from the boat. In such a position, the 
thought naturally occurred that we should 
make but a sorry figure and show but a poor 
fight, if these lizards of Brobdignag happened 
to take it into their long flat heads to make 
a dash at us both, as we lay crouched on 
a level w^ith their open jaws, carrying us off 
tucked under their short human-handed arms, 
or clenched and crunched between the hooked 
and jagged fangs, distinctly to be seen and num- 
bered, as well as the square overlapping scales 
of compact, defensive, and impenetrable mail. 
Nothing tries nerve so much as inaction in 
presence of danger, real or supposed ; at least 
so jealous Pride would fain apologize for a 
certain curdling of the blood that vain Philo- 



272 



NOZEANI IN 



sophy subdues or condemns, though her own 
serene vision in this instance quailed for a time 
under the sinister glance of the pig-eyed cro- 
codile, whose little swivel-mounted optic-balls 
luckily did not roll our way. I could not help 
looking at my giant friend Yaakoob, to see 
whether the skin of his sable highness showed 
any blanching evidence of the feeling that sent 
my own blood to its source with fast-accele- 
rating velocity; but the ebony Hercules was 
true and steady to his device, mat hhafsli, 
"never fear/' looking as he lay sprawling in 
full length and breadth, half in half out of the 
water, as if with a hook once put in the jaws 
of leviathan, it might have been a fair match, 
fS pull man, pull beast,' 5 as in the magic-lantern 
of boyish days. So being ashamed to show 
the white feather in presence of such a black 
Colossus for a tower of strength, the Effendee 
forthwith, in obedience to a signal, banged a 
rifle bullet against the plate-armour of the 
nearest dragon, with no other effect than that 
of rousing both monsters from their placid re- 
pose to a state of violent commotion, sweeping 
round and scuttling off in a terrible flurry, 
ploughing deep channels through the flying 
sand in their rush to the near water, whose 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



273 



furrowed surface flashed foaming behind the 
boiling path, no sooner opened than closed in 
homage to their ponderous, lashing, and quiver- 
ing bulk. If the shot had taken effect upon 
the yellow-skinned belly of the brute, instead 
of glancing off from the proof armour of scale, 
we might have had an exploit to boast, instead 
of feeling that we had impertinently and un- 
profitably disturbed the siesta of the majestic 
reptiles by a puny, contemptible onslaught^ 
ending in our tribute of guttural notes of in- 
voluntary admiration, Allah! Allah ! tybe ketir!* 
However, crocodiles have had their day, — now 
fallen from the estate of gods to the condition 
of game, soon, like the 

« saturam serpentibus Ibin," 

to escape the fantastic tricks of man by the 
extinction of their ancient once-honoured race 
from the river, of which they fondly said " It 
is our own." 

THEBES. 

Forty miles above Dendera, about 25° 30' 
north latitude, stand, divided by the Nile, the 



* Very fine ! by Jupiter ! 

T 



274 



NOZRAKI IN 



mysteriously stupendous ruins of "immortal 
Thebes/' of whose history the world knows 
considerably less than might be expressed in an 
octavo page, half of which might again be fairly 
put down as poetry. Homer, nine hundred 
years B.C., sings of the hundred-gated Thebes. 
The prophets of Scripture, three hundred years 
later, denounce vengeance on the multitude of 
populous No, to be "rent asunder" according 
to the word of the God of Israel; and fifty 
years had scarcely elapsed before the coming 
wrath denounced by Ezekiel was poured on 
the devoted city by the ruthless Persian, not 
found slack in the fulfilment of his unconscious 
commission to " execute judgments upon No." 
Cambyses thunders at the hundred gates of 
Thebes — 

" Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis." 

We find it, as the frantic son of Cyrus left 
it, distressed, overthrown, desolate, and "rent 
asunder." "Ethiopia and Egypt were her 
strength, and it was infinite ; yet went she into 
captivity, and her children were dashed in 
pieces at the top of her streets." The same 
inspired voice that tells the fate of No- Anion 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



275 



warns the proudest capital upon earth with the 
words, "Art thou better than she ? " 

<c Mutato nomine de Te fabula narrator." 

As the prophet Nahum is supposed to have 
written nearly two centuries before Cambyses, 
we must conclude that the ill-starred city had 
more than one visitation to bemoan. "The 
sea" (yam) that he speaks of as her rampart is 
of course the Nile, and "the rivers" (mayim 
saviv lafi) the irrigating canals round about. 
(Nahum iii. 8.) 

Five days spent among the gigantic architec- 
tural masses and columned scenery of Karnak, 
Luxor, Medinet Aboo, and the Memnonium, 
leave but a vague, dreamy, melancholy impres- 
sion of grandeur without meaning, antiquity 
without history, ruin without record — bald, 
dreary, shattered fragments of an age whose 
lineaments are lost in the dim distance of three 
thousand years — whose achievements are unsaid, 
unsung, unknown — and whose unmantled relics, 
hallowed by no regret, and honoured by no 
renown, are unsoftened by 

cc Decay's effacing fingers 
That sweep the lines where beauty lingers." 

T 2 



276 



NOZRAHT IN 



There is indeed no beauty in the monuments 
of Egypt; if we except the obelisks, " pointing 
with upward finger to the sky." Grand, impres- 
sive, and sublime the others may be, and are ; 
but assuredly with no element of loveliness 
that might not as well be claimed by the scat- 
tered bones of a nameless giant blanching in the 
lonely desert. Huge columns, colossal statues, 
crouching sphynxes, and soaring obelisks, with 
all the inextricable array of hieroglyphic signs 
and symbols, are familiar enough to the eyes 
and imagination of those who care to con travels 
or turn prints ; and this reflection saves me the 
trouble of attempting architectural description, 
at all times difficult to write and generally 
impossible to read. 

On the eastern side of the river, which is 
here about three-quarters of a mile broad, stand, 
from north to south, Kurndu, the tombs of 
the Kings, the Memnonium, and the temple of 
Medinet Aboo ; westward, the Luxor with the 
stupendous piles of Karnak, all of which are 
elaborately described and learnedly developed 
in the work of Sir G. Wilkinson. The principal 
characteristic of the Egyptian order is its pon- 
derous massive strength, — horizontal blocks 




EGYPT AND SYRIA. 277 

upon upright pillars, so thick and close that 
they look like a wall with lucid intervals : no 
pointed arches springing upward in the pride 
of strength and grace and beauty, the triumph 
of the Christian, misnamed the Gothic style, 
erected in the spirit and genius of Gospel 
devotion, where the time-defying arch, resting 
on strength, soaring in grace, and meeting in 
unity, abides from age to age as an emblem of 
the enduring Truth whose foundation is Faith, 
whose spring is Hope, and whose consummation 
is Charity. The perfection of which the nature 
of Egyptian architecture is susceptible, is seen 
in its full development in the Greek orders to 
which it gave birth. "We find in the Athenian 
temples the same distribution and division, the 
same lines horizontal and vertical, but light- 
ened, proportioned, and embellished to the 
exquisite acme of beauty, achieved in the shaft, 
the capital, and the entablature of the Parthe- 
non or Erectheium ; presenting moreover, the 
latent principle of the arch in the pointed angle 
of the pediment. We must, however, assign 
the palm of beauty, not only to the obelisks 
but also to the Egyptian doorways, which even 
the genius of Athens could scarcely improve, 



278 



NOZKANI m 



and indeed never attempted to alter, save in 
tlie ornamental decoration. In the Theban tem- 
ples they are usually of polished Syene granite, 
adorned with deep sculptured hieroglyphics, 
generally surmounted by winged globes and 
outspread birds of immortality. The temper 
of the tools which cut adamantine stone as 
sharply and closely as an ordinary scoop cuts 
an ordinary cheese, is still a matter of masonic 
mystery. 

The propylaia, or huge, square-shaped, flat- 
surfaced masses on either side the grand 
approach, appear to have been designed as vast 
open pages on which to inscribe historic deeds ; 
they seem essential to an Egyptian temple, and 
are conspicuous far and wide, in narrow pro- 
file or broad plane, attracting and baffling the 
eye on a nearer approach by the extraordinary 
complication and confusion of chariots, horses, 
horsemen, conquerors and conquered, gods and 
goddesses, priests, processions, executioners and 
victims. The arrangement is that of bas-relief 
in horizontal series, the figures evidently con- 
ventional, but marvellously spirited, considering 
the rude rough, design where a circle is never 
round and a line never true. The usual scene 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



279 



depicted is that of a gigantic conqueror — Sesos- 
tris or somebody else — standing in a car career- 
ing at full speed, and shooting his arrows without 
mercy through the bodies of a crowd of flying 
Lilliputians, mingled in a general sctuve qui peut 
with horses, cows, clogs, and swine at full gal- 
lop, reminding one strongly of the famous race 
where the devil takes the hindmost. 

There is one sculptured scene in the great 
temple of Karnak which excites a stronger and 
more defined interest, from the supposition that 
it represents the defeat of Rehoboam by Shi- 
shak, b. C. 970 : " And it came to pass in the 
fifth year of King Kehoboam, that Shishak 
king of Egypt came up against J erusalem ; and 
he took away the treasures of the house of the 
Lord, and of the king's house," &c. He came 
with "twelve hundred chariots, and three score 
thousand horsemen, and people without number 
came with him out of Egypt," &c, and Shishak 
u carried away the shields of gold which Solo- 
mon had made." (1 Kings xiv.; 2 Chron. xii.) 

The king Shishak is delineated as a gigantic 
figure, holding in his hand a bunch of severaj 
strings, by which he leads as many rows of cap- 
tives to the throne of a seated god, who extends 



280 



NOZRAXI IN 



in his left hand the mystical looped cross, of 
such frequent recurrence in Egyptian hiero- 
glyphics. The features of the prisoners are 
thought to be Jewish, and the interpreters are 
satisfied that they read Melek Youda, or "King 
of Judah," in the cartouche of the principal cap- 
tive, personifying the conquered nation, many of 
whom were probably brought to grace the tri- 
umph of the returning conqueror : m{ They shall 
be his servants, that they may know My service 
and the service of the kingdoms of the coun- 
tries." (2 Chron. xii.) The figure of the hero, 
with his bow and arrow, is quite in the Homeric 
spirit, with the vulture soaring over his head 
snuffing the carnage of victorious war. If this 
sculpture be cotemporaneous with the event it 
commemorates, it must be about two thousand 
seven hundred years old, and is of peculiar 
interest, as being the only example of a parallel 
passage in hieroglyphic and Sacred Scripture. 

The general characteristic of all these histo- 
rical bas-reliefs is unmitigated ferocity. In the 
temple of Medinet Aboo, we see the conqueror 
seated in his chariot, looking complacently at 
an immense heap of human hands piled before 
him; the executioner, with a chopper under 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



281 



his arm, is just adding two more to the number, 
and several captives stand in the back-ground 
ready to be operated upon, while a scribe in 
full-bottomed wig is dotting down the sum total 
of mutilated members in a very methodical 
business-like way. In another place, we find 
a priest at the head of a procession, just about 
to cut the throat of a poor boy on the altar of 
the gigantic idol, and an attendant is at the same 
moment letting loose a bird, the emblem of the 
departing spirit ; reminding one of the Empe- 
ror Adrian's address to his soul when about to 
wing its trembling way to the world beyond the 
grave : — 

" Animula ! vagula, blandula, 
Hospes comesque corporis, 
Quae nunc abibis in loca?" 

Another expressive emblem of the same mourn- 
ful nature, is the breaking of the stalk of a 
lotus-flower by an accompanying priest. Ill- 
fated youth ! — All flesh is grass ! — " He hath 
but a short time to live : he cometh up and is 
cut down like a flower." The youngest and 
fairest captives of the bow and spear are sup- 
posed to have been thus immolated before the 
shrine of the bloody Moloch — a horribly dis- 



282 NOZRANI IN 

tortecl glimpse of the world-pervading, inscru- 
table doctrine, that "without shedding of blood 
is no remission of sins!" The sacrifice upon 
another altar seems to be a libation of wine 
poured over the limbs of slaughtered beasts, 
intermingled with the sacred lotus. The bull 
Apis makes a great figure, borne aloft upon 
men's shoulders, the original, perhaps, of the 
golden calf in Horeb, the first infringement of 
the Decalogue*, 



* Nothing seems at first sight more extraordinary than 
the constant violation by the Jews of the letter of the second 
commandment. We find from the very beginning under 
the auspices of Moses himself " cherubims of gold" and 
"brazen serpents" the likeness of pomegranates and many 
other things in the earth beneath, brought by Bezaleel and 
Aholiab, the wise-hearted men in whom u The Lord put 
wisdom and understanding? Solomon's brazen oxen too, for 
the molten sea of the temple, are never excepted against, 
and so with several other examples ; but in fact the 
Hebrew second commandment rendered idiomatically, 
would be "Thou shalt not make, &c, in order to bow 
thyself," i. e. thou shalt not make— with the view or for the 
purpose of bowing down. The mere making was held no 
sin till in later days of Jewish superstition. Both the 
second and fourth commandment require popular expla- 
nation in a Christian assembly, before the people can be 
required with propriety to utter the responding petition, 
" Incline our hearts, &c." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



283 



In the midst of so many signs and symbols of 
violent ambition and bloody superstition, it is 
but justice to the memory of these far-distant 
men of old, to bear witness that their walls are 
free from the abominable pollutions that have 
stamped the classic names of Pompeii and Her- 
culaneum with indelible infamy. Whatever 
may have been the esoteric rites of Apis and 
Osiris, there is no outward evidence of such a 
bathos of beastliness as that in which Greek and 
Roman plunged headlong without even seeking 
the veil of congenial darkness. The Egyptian 
scrolls, bas-reliefs, and historical drawings show 
much that is spirited and noble, both in design 
and execution : a great deal utterly unintelli- 
gible, from our ignorance of their conventional 
language — much that is ferocious, barbarous, 
and bloody — but nothing licentious or infamous; 
the Phallic insignia not being liable to such 
reproach in a primitive age. 

The paintings in the Tombs of the Kings are 
exquisitely coloured and as fresh as if of yes- 
terday. One wanders through these marvellous 
subterranean vaulted galleries, scooped in the 
solid rock, with a feeling approaching to incre- 
dulity ; it is so hard to believe that these bril- 



284 



NOZRANI IN 



liant tints and finished designs upon smooth 
stucco, should be as old as the time of Moses 
or thereabouts — sofas, ottomans, arm-chairs^ 
camp-stools, drawers, wash-hand-stands, and 
baskets of all shapes, attract and perplex the 
eye with their variety and elegance of form and 
contrivance, many of which seem to have come 
down to us through the medium of the classic 
style — the harp and guitar, with several modifi- 
cations, appear to have been favourite instru- 
ments — a man ploughing with a yoke of oxen, 
a sower walking behind with a basket and 
jerking handsful of the seed over his head — 
urns of all shapes and sizes, admirably formed 
and adorned with foliage of the lotus — shirts of 
mail, swords, shields, spears, bows, quivers, and 
so on and so forth, to an immense extent and 
of inexhaustible interest. 

The approach to the royal tombs through the 
pass of the Beban el Melook, on the western 
shore of the Nile, is through a valley which 
might well represent that of the shadow of 
death — frightful, silent, scorching sterility. The 
entrance is by a square porch, cut in the per- 
pendicular face of the rock, and surmounted 
by kneeling figures on either side a cartouche 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



285 



encircling the hawk-headed deity and scarce- 
bceus — emblem of fortitude and wisdom; and 
here, we believe, were deposited in granite sar- 
cophagi the embalmed remains of the Pharaohs 
of Egypt — not in damp, dark, and mouldering 
vaults, but in regal halls and gorgeous galleries, 
destined apparently to be lighted up in all their 
painted pomp with the blaze of a thousand 
perfumed torches shedding a flood of festive 
radiance upon long lines of historic deeds, war- 
like trophies, and joyous scenes, pourtrayed in 
all the warmth of life and light and revelry 
upon the walls round about, gleaming in the 
golden glow of kingly pageantry. Here might 
the ruling monarch of Egypt hold solemn court 
with his princes and peers, round the bones of 
the last Pharaoh gathered to his fathers ; and 
in the mid career of perilous power and pride 
and pleasure, might, perchance, listen to a truer 
and sterner voice than a courtier's whispering 
Disce Mori. 

It is scarcely possible to believe, and by no 
means necessary to suppose, that these elabo- 
rately adorned halls and galleries were intended 
for darkness and solitude. Why should such 
countless hieroglyphics have been so studiously 



286 



NOZRANI IN 



inscribed, and such multitudinous figures so ar- 
tistically pourtrayed, had they been destined for 
no eye but that of the glaring owl and noiseless 
bat ? We may safely conclude, that the pic- 
tured records of the life, death, and judgment 
of an Egyptian monarch were not designed for 
the dead, but the living ; for the ancient artists 
doubtless knew, as well as other wise men, that 
" a living dog is better than a dead lion." 

The tombs or galleries descend, somewhat 
rapidly, by steps into the heart of the rock, to 
the distance of three or four hundred feet, the 
sarcophagus chamber and adjoining sanctuary 
being at the further extremity of the straight 
shaft, which is usually single, though in one ex- 
ample returning by a parallel and corresponding 
corridor, peculiarly rich in small side recesses, 
elaborately painted with specimens of armour, 
furniture, instruments, &c. The royal tomb, 
distinguished as Belzoni's, is supposed to have 
been the sepulchre of the predecessor of Se- 
sostris about 1350 years before Christ; another, 
named in honor of the chivalrous Bruce of 
Abyssinian memory, is assigned to Barneses first 
or second. But besides these regal and lonely 
cemeteries, one has to grope one's way through 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



287 



a necropolis of vulgar Theban dead, interred 
some three thousand years ago, in numberless 
excavations perhaps originally quarries, opening 
into the rocky hill from three sides of a square. 
These tombs are now occupied during the hot 
season by the families and flocks of the neigh- 
bouring Arabs, over a large party of whom we 
suddenly stumble in the dark, snoosing in lux- 
urious siesta in a temperature 30° lower than 
outside. The paintings and devices in these 
catacombs are descriptive of private life — com- 
mon-place incidents of common-place people — 
but not less interesting to ordinary mortals than 
the record of the mightier deeds of mightier 
men. The transient joys and more abiding sor- 
rows of our chequered life are to be found at 
home in domestic memoirs, not abroad in his- 
toric records. 

(t Of all the ills that human hearts endure, 
How few that kings or laws can cause or cure !" 

It is then in the sympathy of communion with 
our fellows that we trace the pictured career of 
these " men of old," when Time was young — 
that we find them playing, from the cradle to 
the grave, from their entrance to their exit, the 



288 



NOZRANI IN 



selfsame parts that we ourselves are support- 
ing, "the acts being seven ages." Upon these 
fresh tinted walls we have them depicted all 
and sundry — men, women, and children — 
births, deaths, and marriages — law, physic, and 
divinity, and the great, solemn, and crown- 
ing truth, known, confessed, and proclaimed, 
Morsjanua Vitce, — after death the Judgment, — 
aye, even of the meditations of the heart, and 
the words of the mouth, and the good deeds of 
man weighed by his Judge in balance with a 
feather! 

But enough of dusky death. Let us emerge 
from these dingy caverns of mouldering mor- 
tality, these painted sepulchres full of rottenness 
and dead men's bones, these subterranean acres 
of fusty cellarage, and return once more to the 
beaming light of Egypt's sun, blazing upon the 
grim and naked limestone cliffs, honeycombed 
with a myriad of yawning issues of dismal omen; 
and let us praise the Lord and Giver of life 
that toe are not yet gone down to " the pit of 
corruption/' where none can give Him thanks 
— that with us it is yet called to-day while we 
may work ! " Let the deed bury their dead," 
and the "living, the living" — rejoice in the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



289 



strain of Hezekiah redivivus, living to learn 
and 

" Learning to live, that we may dread 
The grave as little as our bed," 

During several hours' suffocating Khamseen 
wind, we receive shelter under the roof of an 
Arab official, where we lie perdus half the day 
soaked in wet towels, gasping for breath; but 
the suffering is more than compensated by the 
pleasure and advantage of making acquaintance 
with a French traveller, a gentleman and scho- 
lar, with whom the casual meeting leads to a 
friendly intimacy which lasts till we part at 
Cairo, to pursue different routes; in the mean 
time I rejoice in the interchange of European 
intercourse of the right stamp, having in some 
measure exhausted the topics or wearied the 
patience of my man Friday, honest black Omar, 
cicerone, chef de cuisine, valet-de-chambre, and 
factotum; but not altogether qualified to sup- 
ply the place of a Conversazione Lexicon. 

Up an hour before the rising sun, to see his 
level beams fall upon the statue of the vocal 
Memnon, greeting the advent of Apollo with 
the mystic melody of the marble lute: 

" Dimidio magicse resonant ubi Memnone chordae." 

U 



290 



NOZRAKI IN 



This poetic fable seems to have had a peculiar 
charm for the classic genius of Greece and 
Eome: the sober Strabo, the prosy Pausanias, 
and even the stern and philosophic Tacitus, all 
delight in Memnon's vocal strain; the historian 
thinks it worth while to tell us that his fa- 
vourite hero Germanicus, bent his mind to the 
study of the problem *. 

So much for the proud sceptical acumen of 
the sage who would have branded Christianity 
as "exitiabilis superstitio;" it is some satisfac- 
tion to us to know what these wise men did 
believe, to find the incredulous historian of the 
Empire devoting a pompous period to a nursery 
tale, that might perhaps pass muster as rhyme, 
but makes a poor show as reason. Strabo tells 
us he heard something, but does not know wbatf . 
Whether it came from the statue or from the 
base, or from a stander by, he does not venture 
to decide; but there he was with his friend 
.ZElius Gallus and a multitude of soldiers, listen- 



* u Aliis quo que miraculis intendit animuin, quorum 
prsecipua fuere Memnonis Saxea effigies, ubi radiis solis 
icta est, vocalem souum reddeus," &c. — (Annals, xi. 61.) 

f "7repi 'copav irpcor-qv rjKovcra rov \j/o\j/ov eire - - - 
eire - - - are — ovk r^a> ducrxvpicracrOai" (xvii. 46.) 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



291 



ing and looking with all their might, like long- 
eared philosphers as they were. For ladies' 
fancy and poets' phrenzy, a la bonne heure, — 
one loves to hear in harmonious verse of 
" Memnon's magic harp" quivering to Titan's 
ray; and better still, to think of Rome's fair 
Empress leaning upon her imperial lord, watch- 
ing with lustrous eyes and awe-struck heart the 
mighty majestic Monolith, gazing on high from 
his dewy throne upon the glowing East, to hail 
the holy Light with marble melody; but for 
haughty annalists and grave geographers to 
chronicle the poet's phrenzy and the lady's fancy 
is not written in their bond. The Arabs call 
these gigantic statues by the familiar names of 
Shamy and Damy, or sunny and shady; they 
are placed upon a raised platform of rock, and 
sit on their chairs facing the east, towering up 
to a height of about sixty feet. The northern 
Colossus is the famous vocalist, and sadly shat- 
tered: hundreds of Greek inscriptions, from his 
knees downward, attest the zeal of his ancient 
votaries — the Emperor Adrian and his wife 
Sabina among the number — but it is no easy 
matter to climb the giant's lap to decipher the 
time-worn names. One is well known : 

u 2 



292 



NOZRANI IN 



"C. iEMILIUS HORA PRIMA SEMIS AUDIVI 
VOCEM MEMNONIS." 

These magnificent monstrosities are supposed 
to have formed the termination of a vast ave- 
nue of similar warders leading to the temple of 
Memnon, though there is a doubt as to the 
correctness of the name ; the Memnonium itself 
stands westward, near the end of the cultivated 
plain, before it rises to the rocky perforated hill 
which contains the city of the ancient dead. 
The principal marvel here, is the overthrown 
statue of the so-called younger Memnon, the 
head of which may be any day seen in Blooms- 
bury. Cambyses is supposed to have toppled 
this huge Dagon from his throne 500 B.C., — an 
Iconoclastic feat, which gives him precedence 
for ever in the ranks of the image-breakers* 
The fragments of another similar monster of 
granite lie prostrate on the earth, of beautiful 
execution and brilliant polish ; his measure 
across the shoulders is something more than 
seven yards, and the nail of his great toe more 
than a foot in length. 

We were amused, in the midst of these so- 
lemn scenes of desolate ruin, with the gay fes- 
tivity of an Arab wedding— piping, drumming, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



293 



and dancing with all their heart in the long 
evening shadows of the broad Propylon and 
broken columns of the temple and sanctuary of 
Sesostris. Knowing nothing and caring nothing 
for aught but the present tenure of this world's 
good, they eat, they drink, they dance, they 
sing, they marry and are given in marriage. 
As the Arabs always give a Frank credit for 
being more knave than fool, they suppose that 
we grub among the ruins for what we can find, 
and that each European traveller is an emissary 
from his king, commissioned to conjure gold out 
of its secret hiding-place, by a hocus-pocus 
beyond their reach ; for though they themselves 
occasionally dig and hammer away mercilessly 
and mischievously, they never light upon the 
treasure they look for. 

On the eastern side of the Nile we spend a 
long day at Luxor and Karnak. The French 
have carried off one of the two beautiful obe- 
lisks that stood guardians in front of the Pro- 
pyla of Luxor, to place it in the centre of their 
Place de la Concorde, and in so doing have 
robbed the ruin of that which less enriches 
them than it makes poor the widowed partner 
of its ancient glory. An obelisk at Paris is 



294 NOZRANI m 

but a sorry lion for the gaping badauds of the 
Palais-Royal ; every man who knows or cares 
aught about it, would rather it were in its own 
place, shadowed by its own genius loci, or light- 
ened up by the resplendent beams of its own 
native sun : the deep hieroglyphics of Egyptian 
sculpture require the strong illumination of an 
Egyptian sky. In ancient Rome these monu- 
ments had a meaning, connected as they were 
with the triumphs of the Empire ; but the 
Luxor needle in Paris, and the Elgin marbles 
in London, can only be excused on the plea of 
preservation; and the defence is not valid in 
the former, whatever it may have been in the 
latter case. 

But after all Karnak is the crowning marvel 
of temples raised with hands. It seems scarcely 
credible that such piles and masses should have 
been reared by beings six feet high. Think of 
a hall supported by one hundred and twenty 
columns, seventy feet high and thirty in girth 
— imagine a marble mountain quarried into a 
temple by a band of Titans — a rocky wilderness 
of walls, columns, porticos, and obelisks, up- 
right, leaning, fallen, broken, shattered, and 
rent asunder: never did the wreck of human 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



295 



handiwork present such a scene of sublime and 
wild desolation, and the detail as rich and com- 
plex as the conception simple and overwhelm- 
ing — every round pillar, every square obelisk, 
and every plane surface a sculptured record of 
mystic religion, natural knowledge, or historic 
triumph. See that vast battle-piece spread upon 
the broad and towering wing of the grand Pro- 
pylon — the warrior, the chariot, the pursuing, 
the pursued, the dying, and the dead! Look 
at the bold, sweeping, careless lines that seem 
dashed off by the untaught hand of the god of 
war; and if key or comment be needed to il- 
lustrate genius, turn to the Book of Job, for 
his "horse clothed with thunder, the quiver 
rattling against him, the glittering spear and 
the shield ! " — aye " the battle of the warrior is 
with confused noise, and the shout of a King is 
among them!" But the sceptre of Karnak's 
kings is broken for ever, — "the golden city has 
ceased" — " Babylon is fallen, is fallen" — her 
graven images are broken, — " judgments are 
executed in No" — "her multitude cut off," 
and her fences "rent asunder." "Thus saith the 
Lord of Hosts, Behold I will punish No-Amon 
and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and 



296 



NOZRAKI IN 



their kings, and they shall be there a base king- 
dom, and there shall be no more a prince of the 
land of Egypt." 

" Et nunc Reges intelligite 
Erudimini qui judicatis terrain." 

The temperature during our week's sojourn 
at Thebes has been hot, but, with the exception 
of a Khamseen gale, not so oppressive as the 
range of mercury might have led us to expect. 
Fahrenheit's thermometer in the shade has once 
reached 105° two hours after noon; but the 
average temperature for the twenty-four hours 
is about 80°, and the minimum before dawn 66°, 
when the sensation is that of positive chill. The 
air of Upper Egypt is so dry and pure, that 
the plague can never establish itself, even when 
imported; the people seem, in fact, exe pt 
from all malady but that of ophthalmia ; c I s 
and coughs are apparently unknown. This 
would surely be a climate of refuge from e 
ravage of our national scourge. Six months' 
boating and camping in the valley of the Xile 
would seem to unite all that could be wished 
for baffling the insidious approach of lurking 
consumption — exercise without fatigue, excite- 
ment without temptation, novelty without dan- 



EGYPT AND SYBXA. 



297 



ger, healthy occupation for mind and body, good 
air, good food, good water, with just enough of 
" roughing it" to ensure good appetite and good 
humour — your boat your home on the water, 
and your tent your lodge upon the land. Re- 
sources in abundance; the cabin stored with 
books, maps, double barrels, and fishing rods, 
with carte blanche to sport over a manor of a 
thousand miles, stocked with fish, flesh, and 
fowl of all sorts, from crocodiles and ostriches 
downwards. Whoever travels with Goldsmith's 
flute has another string to his bow, and as the 
soft notes float on the broad waters of the Nile, 
he may gather to the unknown melody as 
strange an audience as ever honoured Orpheus. 
If ail these appliances, with the society of a 
friend, will not minister fresh life to the cur- 
rent of the blood, it must be tainted beyond 
human help. 

The only serious annoyance in Egypt is from 
the insects, and they certainly are enough, at 
first, to drive a nervous man frantic ; but, partly 
from use, and partly from the precautions of 
experience, one soon ceases to fret ; a musquito 
curtain and fly whisk are indispensable and ef- 
fectual auxiliaries. The terror of snakes, &c, i s 



298 



nozrani in 



little more than a bug-bear, about on a par with 
hydrophobia in England. Perhaps throughout 
the whole of Egypt, not a dozen deaths are 
caused by serpents in a year; but plenty of 
them are to be seen, with the ugly crab-shaped 
scorpions and portentous-looking spiders, all 
adding the interest of novelty after their kind. 
The only particular alarm I have been in since 
we came to Thebes, was from a scorpion tum- 
bling from the rafters of a house on the little 
tray at which we were dining, putting us to the 
rout for the nonce, the intruder shuffling off for 
his life as fast and frightened as any of us; they 
are apt to lurk under stones, basking in a re- 
flected heat which would bake very good pie- 
crust. We find serpents of every kind and no 
kind making a great figure among the ancient 
paintings, many of them ivinged, but whether in 
an emblematic or actual character does not ap- 
pear. Isaiah speaks of the "fiery flying ser- 
pent" (saraph meyopheph)\ but the same doubt 
may attach to the meaning of the expression. 
It is quite certain that no winged snakes now 
exist, though from their power of springing 
they might be poetically called so, precisely as 
they are termed fiery, or burning, from their 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



299 



colour, temper, or the inflammatory nature of 
their poison, by the figure known as meto- 
nymy*. (Numbers xxi. 6.) 

The army of Cambyses suffered from the 
same plague in the wilderness of Amnion, 
where fifty thousand men perished, whom he 
had detached from Thebes to destroy the 
temple of Jupiter. This reminds me that a 
French officer, high in the service of the Basha, 
employed to search for coal, assured us that, in 
ancient times, what we call artesian wells were 
very common in the desert, and that the Per- 
sian army was destroyed by the stopping up of 
these wells by the wandering tribes, who 
spiked them scientifically with wedges of rock, 
which Monsieur le Bey professed to have occa- 
sionally discovered in his geological researches ; 



* The simplicity of primitive Hebrew scarcely admits 
of the more modern distinctions of adjective, participle, &c. 5 
instead of a qualifying epithet attached to person or thing, 
another substantive is placed in apposition, or connected 
by a copulative ; several seeming obscurities in our version 
are cleared up by a knowledge of this idiom, probably 
among others, that of Matt. iii. 11. speaking of baptism 
"with the Holy Ghost and fire," (ev Trpevfxan Kai irvpi) 
meaning the fiery Holy Ghost, i.e. energetic, or strongly 
working. 



300 



NOZRANI IN 



be this as it may, history declares that not one 
of the fifty thousand soldiers of Canibyses either 
reached the Oracle of Amnion or returned to 
Thebes*. 

ABOVE THEBES. 

A pleasant sail, with a fine north breeze, 
brings us to Essouan, or Syene, on the fourth 
day from leaving Thebes,, from which it may be 
distant about one hundred miles. We merely 
pause for a glimpse at the ancient temples of 
Esneh and Edfou, known to the Greeks as 
Latopolis and Apollinopolis Magna, and take a 
pic-nic luncheon in the vast quarries of Silsili 
on the eastern bank of the river, here suddenly 



* A friendly and courteous critic in the Gentleman 's 
Magazine feels an interest in the assertion of M. le Bey, 
and wishes the author had been more explicit in his state- 
ment; he would gladly have been so, but unluckily 
has told in the text the little all he knew. The Bey 
was an old Napoleon officer, high in favour and trust 
with his Highness the Basha, of a most free, vigorous, and 
enterprising temper, fit by his own confession for the de- 
sert only, living as a chief in the wilderness, with tents, 
camels, and fellaheen, ad libitum, yet well read in men and 
books. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



301 



contracted to about five hundred yards in widths 
between yellow cliffs, where immense masses of 
stone, partly severed from the parent rock, are 
chisel-chipped by men who left their work one 
fine day about two thousand years ago, and 
never returned to it again — perhaps they struck 
for wages, or perhaps they were surprised by 
a party of the Persian's advanced guard ; at 
any rate they never came back. The tombs 
are curious. The ruins of Ornbos, two hours' 
sail below Silsili, might occupy an artist for 
a month, but we are bound for Ethiopia and 
have seen Karnak ! The scenery of the Upper 
Nile is very monotonous, and not at all beau- 
tiful, according to our European standard. An 
immense whity-brown river, rendered intricate 
and dangerous by islands and shoals, rolling its 
sluggish course through a dusty palm-scattered 
plain or valley, bounded on either side by lime 
or sandstone mountains, is the one unvarying 
scene that presents itself for eight hundred 
miles; the cliffs sometimes approach a little 
nearer, and sometimes rise a little higher, but 
always shut one in with the same barren ram- 
part blazing in the same cloudless sunshine. 
It was in the perpendicular face of these de- 



302 



NOZRANI m 



solate rocks that the Christian anchorites of 
the Thebaid scooped their cells, hundreds of 
which look out upon the flood from their airy 
height. The climate and prospect are admi- 
rably chosen for contemplation or listless le- 
thargy, and more than once, after toiling up 
a steep zig-zag precipice to one of these lonely 
eyries, I have felt when lolling upon a well- 
worn stone, polished by the person of some 
eremite of old, that the world might offer 
many a worse alternative than the choice of 
Antony*. 

Some of these caves are hollowed out with 
much care and labour, with summer and winter 
chambers, rude supporting columns, and benches 
hewn in the rock, always commanding the 
grand expanse of the valley, the river, and the 
great Libyan chain on the edge of Zahara; and 
here, with the shelter of a cavern, water from 
the river, and pulse from the soil, have lived for 
half their days the eremite men, whose voices 
from these lonely cliffs have been hailed by the 



* See Gibbon, chap, xxxvii. " Egypt, the fruitful pa- 
rent of superstition, afforded the first example of monastic 
life," &c. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 303 

nations of the earth as arbiters of peace and 
war, umpires of right and wrong*. 

* Austerity, self-denial, abjuration of the world, or 
whatever else it may be called, always has been and pro- 
bably will be for some time to come, the test of religious 
sincerity and superiority in the eyes of the mass ; we know 
the influence of asceticism in the olden days ; and even 
now, Protestant reasoning, sobriety, and respectability 
would perhaps scarcely hold its own, against a bona fide 
system of seclusion, mortification, and voluntary poverty. 
The body of the people know and care little about specu- 
lative doctrine, but they are strongly impressed by the 
Roman Catholic priesthood proclaiming itself ready in 
support of a theory, to defy danger, privation, and death, 
as for example in administering the viaticum alike by the 
curtained couch or on the battle-field ; hence the unction 
goes for something real. The Roman priest sets at nought 
or seems to set at nought, the pomps and vanities of life, 
makes no distinction of persons, inherits no property, be- 
queaths none, merges his individual existence in that of his 
order, and forgoes the social enjoyments that cheer the 
heart of man : opposed to all this, our arguments against 
transubstantiation, &c, are for the multitude as spray upon 
the rock. The Romanist meets us with a "vult populus 
decipi," caring little for reasoning of the head, if he can 
enlist the sympathies of the heart. 

The great strength of our Church establishment at pre- 
sent, seems to be as a corporate body of large property, 
interlaced by kindred and money-interest with all the 
upper and middling classes, and this secular strength may 
still be providentially reserved for great spiritual achieve- 
ments, but its popular religious roots, it may be feared, 
strike neither wide nor deep. 



304 



NOZRANI IX 



Syene, or, as it is now called, Essoucm, is the 
southern boundary of Egypt, ancient and mo- 
dern, and was moreover the limit of the Roman 
empire. The prophet Ezekiel denounces deso- 
lation upon Egypt, "from Migdol to Syene, 
even unto the border of Ethiopia." (Chapter 
xxix. 10.) The text version, "from the tower 
of Syene," is corrected in the margin : the error 
arose from the Hebrew word Migdol signifying 
toive?*, as well as being the proper name of a 
frontier post north of the Red Sea mentioned 



The people look upon the Clergy as reputable Chris- 
tian gentlemen, and albeit not true to the severe test of 
the needle's eye, still good guides for the blind, and most of 
them, save the lean kine of curates, fat and well-favoured. 
The ancient priestship, however, is gone from our Church ; 
whether willingly renounced or not, seems a point adhuc 
sub judice. The public press has succeeded the clerical 
pulpit as the oracle of popular instruction, and the cham- 
pion of the popular cause. Mean while in our actual 
condition of crisis or transition, the obstacle to Roman pro- 
gress is a block of its own dragging, not of Protestant inter- 
posing, namely, conviction of inevitable abuse and scandal 
entailed upon society, by an order of men who cannot, at will, 
cease to be human, i.e., weak, and occasionally wicked, of 
the earth earthy, in spite of ascetic vows, renouncing pro- 
fessions and all the saints in the calendar. Hence general 
suspicion, indignation, and ultimate rebellion against the 
yoke of a world-abjuring but world-embroiling priesthood. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



305 



in Exodus (xiv. 2): " Speak unto the children 
of Israel that they encamp before Pi-hahiroth, 
between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal- 
zephon." The character of the Nile scenery 
now changes ; the river is hemmed in by bold 
rugged masses of granite, and pours its flood in 
eddying rapids through an intricate channel of 
precipitous cliffs, broken islands, and splintered 
pinnacles of dark slippery rock, the famous 
lapis Syenites, from whose quarries have been 
dug the monstrous blocks that still astonish the 
world in the shape of Egyptian shafts, statues, 
and obelisks. "The kings rivalled each other 
in the making of these obelisks, which were 
dedicated to the Sun, and supposed to represent 
his beams, according to the signification of their 
name*." Pliny tells usf that while Cambyses 
was looking unmoved at the flames which 
wrapped the city of Thebes, he was suddenly 
so struck with admiration of the great obelisk, 



* " Trabes ex eo fecere reges quodam certamine obeliscos 
vocantes, Solis numiai Sacratos. Radio rum ejus argu- 
mentum in effigie est, et ita significatur nomine iEgyptio." 
(Pliny, xxxvi. viii.) 

t " Extingui ignem molis reverentia qui urbis nullam 
habuerat." 

X 



306 



NOZEANI IN 



that he ordered the conflagration to be extin- 
guished in its neighbourhood. Some suppose 
that the Persian spared it, with its fellows, from 
religious reverence for the sun, to whose wor- 
ship they were sacred. 

These prodigious masses of stone, one of 
which we know to have been 125 feet in lengthy 
were floated down the Nile by rafts at the sea- 
son of inundation, and the Roman emperors 
vied with each other in outdoing the Egyptians 
themselves, by transporting these obelisks from 
Thebes, Memphis, and Alexandria, to adorn the 
banks of the Tiber, where several of them now 
stand in their pristine pride, excavated and 
restored once more by the sovereign power of 
Christian Bishops, after their last overthrow at 
the hands of the Vandal and the Goth. One 
was erected in the great circus by Augustus, 
another by Claudius in the Campus Martins. 
The king who raised the great Theban obelisk, 
was so alarmed lest the machinery should give 
way, that he tied his own son to its pinnacle as 
a means of ensuring caution on the part of the 
engineers ! (Pliny, xxxvi. ix.) How they con- 
trived to get such a length and breadth of 
granite out of the quarry, without breaking, is 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



307 



not yet explained. There now remains a half- 
cut mass more than a hundred feet long, which 
would apparently require all the resources of 
modern engineering to extricate, smoothly and 
beautifully cut ready for the sculptured hie- 
roglyphics, which it was fated never to re- 
ceive. One huge rock, which might almost be 
called a mountain of granite, was evidently 
about to be detached from its parent, when the 
work was interrupted ; consecutive square holes 
are chiselled in vertical and horizontal lines, 
which were probably intended for the insertion 
of dry wood, to be swollen by moisture with an 
expanding power well known to the ancients. 
Numerous hieroglyphic inscriptions are seen 
both upon the living rocks overhanging the 
river and the detached masses from the quarry, 
which never reached their destination. 



NUBIA. 

The view of the Nile, nearly a mile wide, 
rushing through its multitude of verdant islands 
and black granite rocks, in its passage from 
Nubia to Egypt, is perhaps the most striking 
throughout its whole course ; the contrast 

x 2 



308 



NOZRANI IN 



almost magical between the fresh foaming flood 
pouring through its dark-green, iron-bound 
channel, and the burning, yellow, barren sand- 
stone ranges, which still glare upon us from 
the height of either shore. In the middle of 
the river is the lovely island of Elephantina, 
or the "Isle of Flowers," about half a mile in 
length and rich in ruins of ancient grandeur, 
shaded by groves of palm, in the midst of 
which dwell a Nubian population in as un- 
sophisticated a condition as man can present, 
short of losing his social and gregarious cha- 
racter. The men are a fine, athletic, active 
race, black as ebony, but without any negro 
peculiarities; full of life and good humour, 
with handsome European features and sparkling 
eyes. The women were not too shy to barter 
some of their scarlet necklaces and scanty 
fringes for Birmingham ware, laughing at us 
with an excess of merriment that seemed to 
argue no great awe of civilized superiority; we 
on our side should have admired them more, 
had their dark skins been less redolent of rancid 
grease. The costume of either sex is very pri- 
mitive ; the boys usually quite naked, and the 
young girls only girded with leather fringes. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



309 



During ten days' boating expedition within 

the tropics, we had an opportunity of seeing 

these simple people under various aspects, and 

the impression was altogether in their favour as 

to honesty, hospitality, and gentleness. The 

men are very fond of weapons, which seems a 

natural instinct on the part of a being who 

comes into the world defenceless, holding life 

only by contrivance, but we never saw any 

symptoms of a brawling temper. They wear 

long, naked, broad swords, manufactured for 

them in Germany, and delight in spears and 

ornamented ebony clubs, with round shields of 

hippopotamus-hide, specimens of all of which 

we readily obtained in exchange for money or 

trinkets. One old chief offered me a steel 

blade, with a mystical device he much valued 

engraved under the hilt, and I was chivalrous 

enough to honour it more highly than he upon 

deciphering the unlooked-for motto of the royal 

Plantagenet, Honi soit qui mal-y-pense — a good 

bright old sword without a sheath, patched with 

a hippopotamus handle. 

" Wie glanzt im Sonnenstrahl 
So blaulich hell der Stahll 
Hurrah ! " 

We part with a " Vivat Eegina ! 99 



310 



NOZRANI IN 



Nothing delighted us more than their in- 
comparable swimmings which, for speed, endu- 
rance and science, might challenge the world. 
A troop of them would cross the Nile for mere 
amusement at the rate of a run; not in our 
fashion, but with an overhandecl stroke, each 
arm alternately out of the water up to the 
shoulder, which of course must be a great 
expenditure of strength at disadvantage: but 
the speed for a short distance is extraordinary. 
Another mode of aquatic progress is by means 
of a long double faggot of reeds, upon which 
the voyager supports himself, half in and half 
out of the water, propelling the floater by a 
two-bladed paddle, grasped in the middle with 
both hands : in this way they can ascend or 
descend the Nile for several miles, till the 
machine becomes saturated, when they drive it 
ashore to prevent its sinking. 

A striking scene we witnessed among them, 
was a funeral solemnity, about twenty miles 
south of Philae. We had landed about noon 
to seek shelter from the burning heat at the 
village of Demir, and saw that something was 
going on by the concourse of natives round a 
habitation of high Nubian pretension, hollowed 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



311 



in the rock and shaded by a cluster of palm 
trees. Keeping at a respectful distance, we 
watch about fifty women form themselves into 
a circle, each with a long white wand in her 
hand, and, to the time and tune of a wild 
wailing chorus, begin a Macbeth round, never 
surpassed in grim grotesque by the w^eird sis- 
ters; — tall, dishevelled, half-clothed, wailing 
Bacchanals, pacing with lifted feet and rolling 
loins in measured cadence round and round, 
beating time with their long sticks of palm, to 
the low, howling dirge, which rises at once to 
a shrill piercing shriek, as the women take to 
flight at the sudden appearance of three boats 
paddling fast round the point to land a score 
of armed men, who, jumping on shore, throw 
down spear and shield in military order, and 
advance at a quick run to the house of death, 
from which the bearers soon issue with the 
body on an open bier. 

i( Funus interim 
Procedit; sequimur; ad sepulchrum venimus 
Fletur." 

All funerals are alike, and Simo's narrative 
for brevity and pathos is the best extant. The 
procession falls in : the female mourners follow, 



312 



NOZEANI IX 



beating their bosoms and throwing sand on 
their heads ; the quavering lament prolongs its 
note under the reflecting rocks, and the long 
funeral train winds its slow way from the sha- 
ded village and flowing river across a tract of 
desert, blazing under the noon-day beams of a 
tropical sun, till they reach the sandy grave, into 
which the corpse is lowered with the religious 
solemnity and devotion which, in all lands and 
under all systems, mark man as believing "that 
he lives though he die*." We look on at a 



* A happy improvement of late days in our own funeral 
system is a reduction of the former scandalous and ridicu- 
lous scale of expenditure. One sees by advertisement that 
a man may now clear his last score with the undertaker for 
a couple of guineas, or so, a thought which may soften the 
grim aspect of death to many a dying husband and father. 
Those who know the poor, can tell how bitter are the last 
dregs of worldly care about burial expenses, the alternative 
of aj>arish or private funeral, the one odious, the other rui- 
nous. Every Englishman should read the Parliamentary 
Blue Book on these matters, embodying the details and re- 
sults of our own system as compared with the foreign, espe- 
cially the admirable one of Frankfort. No single measure, 
perhaps, would go so far ^to soften the poor man's heart 
towards the Established Church as the abolition of burial 
fees, which now in the shape of ground fee, bell fee, dig- 
ging fee, clerk's fee, and minister's fee, fall upon the des- 
titute and desolate mourner as a cold crushing burthen in 



f EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



313 



respectful distance while "they bury their dead 
out of their sight/' apparently neither giving 
offence nor attracting attention ; a matter as to 
which we had some misgiving when the crowd 
separated to return, finding ourselves two help- 



the name of that religion whose province at the last hour 
should be sympathy and consolation, without money and 
beyond price. 

They^ naturally ask why, or for what purpose is the 
Church endowed, if not for burying our dead out of our 
sight, how otherwise the "poor man's Church?" As 
things are, a clergyman may feel while returning a poor 
peasant's hard-earned coin, that he establishes a precedent 
inconvenient perhaps, and injurious to his successor. 

It is easy to say that the private funeral in a case of desti- 
tution is a whim, but it is neither easy nor safe to strangle 
such whims in the heart of man, closely connected as they 
are with his natural instincts. A parish funeral is & hateful 
thing, and the authorities, from interest, will endeavour to 
keep it so. The self-respect of our humbler classes has 
been for many years gradually settling to a lower level ; 
woe to be to us all if it sink in the lees and dregs of des- 
pondency ! It would be well to make allowance for any 
whims that argue an unbroken spirit in the lowly and de- 
pressed classes of the community, — to be in no great hurry 
for instance, to quarrel with the cur whose crust can ill be 
spared in the squalid hut; never mind prosing about the 
expense and the folly, it is a sign of warmth and life in the 
master's heart, something upon which the healthy human 
kindness within him, may still spend and expand itself in 
the pride of bounty and protection. 



314 



NOZKANI IN 



* 



less Christian strangers straggling among at 
least two hundred Mooslim natives, the men all 
armed with sword and dagger. An old sheyk, 
however, to whom we address ourselves, gives 
us a courteous reception, and we accompany 
him to the village, where his upright spear 
planted in the ground is the centre of a circle 
marked as our own, within which w T e may buy, 
barter, and dispense drugs in perfect security 
and with considerable amusement. The faith 
with which they swallow pills is an edifying 
tribute to European science, real or pretended ; 
and a Frank traveller, though neither entitled 
nor disposed, finds himself almost compelled to 
play the fS medecin malgre lui," invested all at 
once with the full privilege 

ec Medicandi, 
Purgandi, 
Seignandi, 
Et occidendi, 
Impune per totam terrain.' ' 

To avoid, however, the latter consummation, 
it is advisable to deal chiefly in rhubarb, which, 
besides being wholesome, is sufficiently nasty to 
maintain your reputation as a Hakim, or wise 
man of the west. Sulphate of zinc is supposed 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



315 



to be of service for ophthalmia, and sulphate of 
quinine is decidedly good for the intermittent 
fever of the country. The condition of the 
eyes brought for inspection and cure is gene- 
rally hopeless, looking like boiled and broken 
gooseberries ; but the poor people insist upon 
having something done, and there is no choice 
but to dab a drop of the solution into the better 
eye of the two, which makes it smart horribly, 
and they go away content. Embarrassing ap- 
plications occasionally occur, touching cases 
not to be rashly meddled with, when recourse 
must be had to bread pills and Lord Burleigh's 
shake of the head *. 

The ugly ill-conditioned children of Egypt 
are fully matched by those south of the cata- 
racts — the most deplorable dingy little wretches 
that ever excited compassion or disgust; and 
the more surprising, as the men and women are 
all well made. They begin to improve about 
the age of twelve or thirteen, and from being 
flabby, wasted and pot-bellied, grow up tall, 
active, well-limbed savages, frequently with 



* As an amusing and useful book, Graham's Medicine is 
worth its carriage on an Eastern tour. 



316 



NOZRANI IN 



fine features and intellectual heads, and never, 
even in old age, inclined to the protuberant 
obesity so common in the West ; men of sixty 
or seventy, when stripped, look as muscular as 
if twenty years younger; the grizzled beard 
alone proclaims that they are approaching the 
close of their career. 

The toil endured in irrigation by all the 
dwellers on the Mle is excessively severe for 
six months annually, exposed as they are to a 
blinding and baking sun. The boatmen too 
might challenge the world for endurance and 
temperance in rowing, towing, and shoving their 
heavy craft against wind or stream, and through 
the ever-shifting sands of the river. Most of 
these men are Nubians, full of energy and good 
humour in the face of hardship ; the more they 
work the more they sing and laugh and talk : 
the howling hay-lay-issah is the chorus which 
invariably accompanies all energetic exertions 
of the crew, frequently up to the shoulders in 
water or mud, the latter of which they con- 
sider beneficial to the skin. The sure road to 
their good graces is by the baksheesh, usually 
well deserved ; such as a sheep once a fortnight, 
costing about half a crown^ and making them 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



317 



a royal feast, after the spare diet of unleavened 
bread, cucumbers, and water-melons, which con- 
stitute the usual fare. The bread they make 
and bake themselves about twice in a month*: 
to the vegetables they help themselves from 
either bank, without any meum and tuum scru- 
ples, suffering neither in conscience nor diges- 
tion; full of gaiety, drollery, and mimicry; 
telling tales and making speeches with an elo- 
quence and action worth a fortune to an Italian 
improvisatore. 

In religion, the Nubians are now Mussulmen 
by profession, though not considered orthodox 
at Cairo. They were once, like the Copts and 
Abyssinians, Christian, at least in name, and of 
the Eutychian or Monophysite sect, within the 
pale of the African church founded by St. Mark; 
but that unhappy church, though planted, seems 
never to have been watered, and has yielded no 

* Unfermented or unleavened cakes baked on a round 
iron plate, over a fire of camel-dung or other fuel ; very 
good of its kind, and unadulterated ; our common Christian 
tampering with the staff of life, would be a speculation 
more perilous than profitable to Mooslim practioners. 
The wild justice of the market police would probably ad- 
dress the baker with an argumentum ad hominem, seated 
sans culotte on his own oven-plate. 



318 



NOZRAKT IN 



Increase: like "lukewarm Laodieea" it has 
been u spewed forth as neither hot nor cold/' 
and the Evangelist is now a a stranger in the 
land of Ham." The Coptic church is a mere 
mummy ; its members the most abject and ig- 
norant of the people ; and the divine message 
of "Peace on earth" finds but little response 
in the wilds of Ethiopia, where a kingdom 
that still rears the Cross against the Crescent 
is plunged in a fierce and bloody struggle for 
life with the brutal and filthy Gallas, whose 
practice, however, does not disgrace their pro- 
fession, both being abominable. 

A baffling south wind, hot and dry as the 
breath of an oven, prevents our reaching the 
second cataract, as we had hoped ; but we keep 
our faces to the equator till the sun shines ver- 
tically over our heads at noon, and we stand 
shadowless beneath his zenith, in a temperature 
thirty degrees higher than our own blood, main- 
taining by the marvellous powers of life the 
same vital heat in the heart of man, whether 
he breathes the air of the arctic or the torrid 
zone, forty degrees below or a hundred above 
the point that freezes water. 

One remarkable and startling effect of the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



319 



temperature of the air being higher than that 
of the circulating bloody is the touch of a dead 
body during the heat of day. We are accus- 
tomed to associate the impression of pale death 
with that of cold clay ; but now the dead corpse 
is warmer than the living man; Ave lay our hand 
upon the heart and hope to find it beat, but all 
within is still and motionless — the spirit has 
fled; " the silver cord is loosed/' and foul cor- 
ruption begins its resolving and restoring work;, 
aided by the deadly heat that only mocked us 
with the semblance of life. 

But of all the peculiarities and novelties of 
tropical travel, nothing approaches the impres- 
sive grandeur of the sky lighted up by the 
moon and stars. We talk in England of the 
silvery moon and golden stars ; but to see them, 
we must emerge from our ocean fogs and look 
through the dry and cloudless air of the Libyan 
desert. Nothing delighted me more in our 
daily progress to the south, than to watch the 
gradual sinking of the polar star towards the 
northern horizon, till it descended to the point 
which marked our entrance within the burning 
zone of Cancer, thirty-three degrees below the 
elevation at which I had lately seen it in the 



326 



NOZRAKI IN 



north of Scotland. And the new constellations 
of the south open after every setting sun ano- 
ther illuminated page in the Book of the Reve- 
lation of the Works which declare the glory of 
God. " Let no man/' writes Lord Bacon, 
" upon a weak conceit of sobriety, think that 
he can be too well studied in the book of God's 
Word, or in the book of God's Works, but 
rather let him endeavour an endless progress in 
both : but both to charity and not to swelling, 
to use and not to ostentation, and not unwisely 
mingling or confounding them together." The 
Book of the Works indeed overwhelms us with 
the conviction of Almighty Power; but the 
Book of the Word assures us that this Almighty 
Power is declared most chiefly in showing 
mercy and pity. We may perhaps rise from 
the study of the Works with the faltering 
thought, " What is man that Thou art mindful 
of him V* But if we believe the Word, we know 
and feel that our God is also "our Father which 
is in heaven;" and if it were needful to seek a 
confirming sign, one half the globe might think 
to find it in yonder Southern Cross, streaming 
in sparkling glory from its firmament of gold 
and purple, flashing to the eye of faith in letters 



EGYPT AND SYBIA. 



321 



of living fire the watchword of the church tri- 
umphant, 

EN TOYTO NIKAS. 
c( By this Thou conquerest." 

The stars in their courses have, in time of 
old, been made to bear witness to the Cross, as 
heralds of the glad tidings of " Peace on earth 
and good will to man." The rapt prophet in a 
vision of the Almighty, foresees "Him that has 
dominion" rising afar off as "the Star of Jacob." 
"The root and offspring of David" Himself 
declares, " I am the bright and morning star." 
" The star in the east stood where the young 
Child was," and we are taught to await a dawn 
whose " day-star shall arise on our hearts," 
shining with the never-setting light of eternal 
truth. May we not then look upon this bright 
cross, shining from the clear canopy of a Nubian 
night, as a token set like "the bow in the 
cloud ? " Is it superstition to seek for confir- 
mation of God's Truth from all the works of 
His hand? If they remind us of our means of 
grace and hope of glory, is not their warning 
faithful and their witness true ? It matters 
not where we seek it, in heaven above or earth 
beneath : if we seek it, we find it — if we ask 

Y 



322 



jSTOZRANI in 



it, we have it — believe only, and in all things 
we behold the power of God unto salvation*. 

June 1st This day at noon we see, or think 
we see, the dark shadow of a stick, planted 
vertically in the ground, just creeping out per- 
ceptibly in a new direction, marking our posi- 
tion on the earth's surface, for the first and 
probably the last time in my life, as southward 
of the sun, latitude being somewhat more than 
22° north, and longitude about 33° east from 
Greenwich. The wind breathes scorching and 
deadly heat from the desert — the men can tug- 
no longer at the towing rope to the tune of 
liay-lay-issali — the narrow cliff-enclosed valley 
of the Nile vibrates tremulously to the eye, 
its misty heights rent and distorted in the qui- 
vering air — every living thing, but a floating 
tortoise, seeks refuge from the fierce torrid noon 
in shade and sleep. Omar has caught a fever, 
which defies the quinine ; and the old reiss sits 
under a sail, puffing gloomily from his long 
shibook, growling through his white beard a 

* The prosaic version of this would be, that the mind in 
devotional mood finds confirmation in all the works of God, 
whether considering the lilies of the field, or beholding the 
hosts of Heaven. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



323 



protestation to the prophet and an expostula- 
tion to the Giaour, — How alt harr mosh tybe ya 
Effendee — " The hot wind bodes no good, O 
Effendee." 

We have yet eight hundred miles of river to 
descend before we see the walls of Cairo, then the 
Syrian plains to traverse in the dog-days; so let 
us run the boat into that rocky creek, and mark 
it as the Ultima Thule of our travels under the 
tropic. Those thick palms and pistachios offer 
shade and shelter, where, to woo " Nature's 
soft nurse" to the drowsy sound of the deep 
flood hushing its valley to soothing and saving 
slumber; let us avoid while we may the con- 
cluding consummation of a coup de soleil, by 
indulging in a three hours' siesta, till the sun 
begins to sink behind the Libyan .range, and 
then begin our floating course 



DOWN THE NILE, 

returning homeward-bound towards cooler and 
cloudier skies, for which Providence has formed 
and fitted the minds and bodies of northern 
nurture. 

y 2 



324 



XOZRAXI IN 



Ten days' indefatigable work with eight oars, 
favoured by the stream and occasional hot puffs 
from the south, brings us to Syout, the ancient 
Lycopolis, latitude 27°. The voyage affords but 
few novelties of any kind; day and night pulling 
at the oars, or tugging at the rope when 
opposed by the prevailing wind, which frequently 
blows for twelve hours together in our teeth. 
The great object of interest is the distance we 
can achieve; indifferent even to crocodiles, upon 
whose impervious carcases we scarcely conde- 
scend to waste more powder and ball ; they 
are, moreover, seldom or never seen lower 
down than Minieh. Pigeons we may have in 
abundance, myriads flying over our heads from 
the dove-cotes which constitute nearly half the 
substance of each Egyptian village, kept prin- 
cipally for manure, as guano, (the bird-dung 
which we fetch from the antipodes, while our 
own rivers float to the ocean as much ammonia 
and as many phosphates as would fertilize the 
whole island :) fish we occasionally shoot, by the 
treacherous device of bread crumbs thrown from 
the boat, and my compagnon de voyage amuses 
himself by the scientific dissection of all the 
birds and reptiles that are unlucky enough 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



325 



to fall into our hands*. But the delicious 
water-melons are our main stay for provision 
— deep green outside, bright red in, and 
larger than a man's head, full of the most 
refreshing nectar that ever gladdened a thirsty 



* This "compagnon de voyage" was a man of high stamp, 
a physician, and moreover, correspondent, political and 
scientific, to the Journal des Debats. Nothing connected 
with England surprised him so much as the extent of her 
colonial possessions, and her comparatively small military 
force, thus necessarily scattered over the whole globe ; he 
gave us credit for being eminently a colonizing people, but 
regarding colonies chiefly as a means of wealth, by the estab- 
lishment of markets for home produce, with no higher views, 
religious, moral, or military. Certain it is, that foreigners 
do not allow us to be either a religious or a warlike people ; 
our religion appears to them whimsical and faithless, from 
the multitude of sects whose name, like their never-ending 
squabbles, is legion ; while they try to limit our general suc- 
cess in arms to the ocean, asserting that our land expeditions 
have been frequently ill-planned and conducted till under 
the auspices of the Duke, who has run up an account against 
them which they propose paying off when he shall be fol- 
lowed by a more manageable successor. An Englishman 
has no means of denying that the mass of his countrymen are 
by habit and training the most unwarlike in Europe, with no 
sort of military education as compared with France, Aus- 
tria, Prussia, and Russia, no national guard, no landsturm, 
no militia (worth talking of), the old national weapon the 
bow, succeeded by neither musket, broad-sword, nor pike ; 
much to be lamented on all scores, moral and physical ; it 



326 



XOZEAXI IX 



throat, and to be had for less than any ap- 
preciable fraction of a penny: the rogues 
of rats like them as well as we do, drilling 
very clever round holes in any they can get at 
during the night, leaving us in possession of 
plump well-looking rinds as hollow as a drum. 



would be well perhaps for every man to be a soldier five 
years of his life ; military education and discipline would 
inspire the people with an esprit de corps now wanting, and 
would do much to raise the depressed and pauperized to 
habits of manliness, cleanliness, order, and self-respect. 

"We have lately seen great wrath and ridicule excited 
by a declaration from very high authority of the insufficiency 
of our "national defences;" but why such a hubbub at the 
assertion that in these days of scientific warfare, undisci- 
plined courage would be no match in the open field for 
veteran legions ? The extravagance would be in impugn- 
ing so plain a proposition. It is said that our sportsmen 
and poachers would alone supply marksmen enough to 
pick off the invaders ; it is all very well making game of them 
before they come, but it might be poor sport when they 
did come, to pit fowlers and fowling-pieces, or (as proposed) 
new levies of cab drivers and cads, against the bristling 
bayonets and rattling musquetry of the French infantry. 
It might be better, and wiser, and cheaper to take the 
Duke's advice, and train ourselves for defence as the best 
chance of being unmolested. History would scarcely bear 
us out in placing much reliance upon the forbearance of 
our national neighbours; men are but boys of larger growth, 
and our friends across the Channel, in the language of 
Eton, a owe us a licking." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



327 



The said rats too keep up a running fight all 
night with the Arab boy on deck in charge of 
the bread. (N.B. — Not to forget an iron trap 
in the boat's outfit.) The dates are much to be 
commended as an item of stock, though mashed 
up by the natives into a paste not pleasing to a 
fastidious eye; of all sweet fruits, the date cloys 
least upon the taste, and is very wholesome and 
nutritious. 

About latitude 27° we lose the peculiar palm 
of Upper Egypt, called the Bourn, a stunted 
forked specimen of the species, by no means 
so graceful as the more usual tree of the lower 
country. Every palm pays an annual tax of a 
piastre, or 2%d. 9 to the government, which thus 
derives a revenue of £100,000 and upwards. 
At the various villages we pass, several oppor- 
tunities occur of witnessing the working of the 
Eastern fiscal system, to the sound of wailing 
and gnashing of teeth; and at Syout we are 
unexpectedly spectators of the execution of a 
peasant hanged upon a cross-bar scarcely six 
feet from the ground, rather strangled against 
it than suspended from it. Two soldiers carry 
the sentence into effect, and then squat down 
to smoke close to the gibbet, while three 



328 



XOZEAXI IN 



women stand at a little distance wringing their 
hands and beating their breasts, the only look- 
ers-on beside ourselves., who assuredly sought 
no such sight. TTe understood that the man 
had committed deliberate murder. Whatever 
the reason be, it seems certain that death is 
encountered by the Orientals with more sto- 
icism than with us: perhaps their doctrine of 
fatalism may tend to this result, or perhaps 
the traditional temperament of a race born and 
bred under despotic rule, where life is never 
safe from an irresponsible tyranny pervading 
the whole frame of society, fully as dangerous 
to the great and wealthy as to the poor and 
lowly. An acquaintance of mine assured me 
that he once saw an execution similar to the 
above delayed for nearly an hour, while one 
of the executioners went, at the request of 
the condemned, to purchase a piece of soap: 
the poor wretch meanwhile smoked a pipe in 
friendly conversation with his guard, till the 
other returned with the soap required, which 
the expectant patient rubbed carefully into the 
noose, and having ascertained its strength and 
pliability by repeated jerks, resigned himself 
with a satisfied expression to the deadly fin- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



329 



gering of the sympathizing but philosophic 
functionaries. 

The highest temperature marked by Fahren- 
heit's thermometer since our leaving Cairo has 
been 110° in the shade, with a south-west or 
Khamseen wind; at any other time the heat, 
though very great, is not so overpowering as 
might be supposed, owing to the dryness and 
elasticity of the air, which gives exhilaration 
and tone to mind and body, when a similar 
column of mercury in the damp atmosphere 
of England would reduce us to dissolution 
and thaw; the mornings and evenings are all 
that can be asked of sun, moon, stars, and sky. 

The view from the boat's deck in descending 
the Nile at this season, is not much more ex- 
tensive than from the window of a railway 
carriage. The river reaches its lowest level at 
the summer solstice, and flows between two 
walls of slimy mud fifteen or twenty feet high 
on either side, immense flakes of which are con- 
tinually falling into the stream, already nearly 
saturated with the soil. The banks are moving 
with life in all its varieties — the very dust 
seems animate with organized creation — thou- 
sands of birds lodge like sand-larks in tiers of 



330 



NOZKANI IN 



holes rising from the water's edge — rats, snakes, 
toads, frogs, and marvellous myriads of insects, 
of every size, shape, and colour, mark a lavish 
profusion of the richest elements of teeming 
nature, by whose developed law of increase, life 
is no sooner resolved to dust than the dust is 
&gain recalled to life, in ceaseless circulation of 
mysterious vitality through the three kingdoms 
of earth's upper crust. 

If Egypt were under the sway of an enlight- 
ened government, and the resources of science 
were made to bear upon the capabilities of her 
climate, soil, and river, she would, indeed, be 
again the granary of an empire. Never was a 
finer field afforded for engineering skill, than 
in the establishment of an effective system of 
irrigation, now lamentably bungled with creak- 
ing cogs and clumsy levers, at the expense of 
prodigious toil and suffering on the part of the 
unhappy fellaheen, to whom, as a race, might 
above all and beyond all be inscribed the double 
distich, beginning 

" Sic vos non vobis." 

The 18 th of June dawns upon our tall kanjelt 
anchored quietly within view of the countless 



EGYPT AND $YBIA. 



331 



domes and minarets of Cairo, amid all the life 
and movement of a vast neighbouring capital, 
so different from the independent isolation of 
our three months' wandering since leaving its 
gates for the shores of the Red Sea. Is it the 
idiosyncracy of individual constitution, or a 
feeling common to all men, this sinking of the 
heart on plunging once more into the throng 
of a multitude ? Does not a man really live 
more in communion with his God, his neigh- 
bour, and his own heart, when away from the 
fretful stir and the unprofitable bustle of a huge 
human crowd, beneath the surface of which 
ferments such a rotten compost of moral and 
physical pollution — such a frightful farrago of 
destitution, disease, filth, and debauchery, with 
the fruitful parent of so hateful an offspring — 
callous, careless, selfish luxury ? " God made 
the country, and man made the town. 55 The 
million was intended to be spread abroad, with 
elbow-room upon the surface of the earth, to 
gain their bread from its bosom, in the sweat 
of their brow, under the light and breath of 
heaven, with enough and to spare of food, rai- 
ment, and shelter, in return for the toil of the 
meanest among them. Will our progress, or 



332 



NOZRANI IN 



civilization, or centralization ever lead to this 
result ? is its tendency in this direction, or does 
it sacrifice the collective commonwealth of the 
many to the pampered privilege of the few? 
Upon the answer which his experience may 
suggest^ will depend a man's respect for what 
is called social development, which ought to 
mean the development of the bodily and 
mental faculties of a people, for the attain- 
ment of the health and happiness of the 
greatest number. 

This sort of moralizing however is called 
cant and sentiment by those who like it not, 
and certainly amounts to nothing more than the 
assertion of Christian principles in opposition to 
those of the world we live in ; so let us enter the 
city of Grand Cairo with as little of Bedouin 
abhorrence as may be, thinking of the great 
things now done and doing in the enlarged and 
diseased heart of our body politic at home, as 
the beginning in the mighty metropolis of 
Britain of a new sera in national economy, 
when cleanliness, decency, ventilation, and re- 
creation are to be held as legitimate, desi- 
rable, and attainable objects, even for the 
"scum" at the top or the " dregs " at the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



333 



bottom of the olla podrida which constitutes 
the community*. 

A week quickly passes, partly in preparation 
for a camel march of fifteen or sixteen days to 
Jerusalem, by the route of El-Arish and Gaza; 
spending two or three mornings in a reading 
room well supplied with works of interest to 
an eastern traveller, and open to all European 
visitors by the courtesy of the Frank residents. 
The Indian passengers are delayed indefinitely 
by some mishap or mismanagement among the 
Bombay steamers, and for this I am indebted 
for a much-valued though short-lived intimacy 



* The real improvements and triumphs of the day are 
baths, washing-houses, lodging-houses, early closings, fac- 
tory bills, and all the other alleviations to the white man's 
slavery; honour and thanks to the Ashley school that has 
achieved them! Let them go on and prosper till the 
powers of disease and dirt cease to reign over us, till city 
burials, city slaughters, and city stenches, be things to talk 
of as bye-gone plagues of Egypt ; till we have air, and 
light, and water, enough and to spare, untainted and un- 
stinted by device of Mammon against the gifts of Heaven. 
Barring the horrors of "the middle passage," for which the 
poor negro is indebted to our blundering philanthropy, he 
is better off than many a Londoner, paying Is. 6d. a week 
for his dismal den, sans everything but bare walls, and a 
gratuitous supply of damp, dirt and darkness visible. 



334 



XOZRANI IN 



with the Hon. Colonel Ashburnham, who, if 
ever he chance to see these pages, will remem- 
ber our morning rides in the desert. 

Among the lions of Cairo, an Englishman 
feels bound not to overlook the famous magi- 
cian, a second-sighted seer, indebted for a com- 
fortable living and a European reputation to a 
mystifying article which appeared some years 
since in the Quarterly ; we accordingly invite 
the spirit-calling Magus, who appears at our 
summons more readily than the spirits do at 
his, though the hocus-pocus of fragrant smoke 
and mumbling charm is conducted and contem- 
plated with laudable gravity on both sides. The 
Arab boy (the first we could catch in the streets) 
stares with all his eyes into the ink puddle in 
his palm, seeing anything or nothing, anybody 
or nobody alternately, till the broad practical 
hand of a merry member of the party laid on 
the back of his head, dabs the poor urchin's 
nose into the lamp black, and we dismiss the 
conjuror after a sociable regale of pipes and 
coffee, in high good humour with his reception 
and his fee, apparently quite of our opinion 
that it would be a wasting of fagots to burn 
him for a wizard. The gravity of the farce 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



335 



was creditable to his command of countenance, 
especially as he divined that we could see nearly 
as far into a mill-stone as himself, being doubt- 
less of Cicero's opinion, " Mirabile videtur, quod 
non rideat haruspex cum haruspicem viderit; 
hoc mirabilius quod vos inter vos risum tenere 
possitis." 

Omar continues too shaky to venture upon 
encountering the heat and toil of a Syrian ex- 
pedition ; so, after several fruitless negociations 
with clamorous but ill-qualified candidates for 
his place, I determine to proceed without inter- 
preter or private servant, relying upon my own 
Arabic smattering and the good faith and good 
character of Sheyk Ibraheem, strongly recom- 
mended as a trustworthy guide, well inured 
and experienced in the calling : he accordingly 
affixes his ring signet to a long contract, drawn 
up officially, and witnessed by our consul, Dr. 
Walne, making himself responsible (barring 
casualties) for the safe conduct of the Frank to 
the walls of JEl-Kodsh, The Sacred, as one 
rejoices to find the Holy City still called by 
the Arabs, with no material variation from the 
Hebrew epithet, Kodesh. The payment guaran- 
teed on my part for the service of three men 



336 



NOZRANT IN 



and as many camels, including a dromedary - 
assigned to myself, amounts to twelve hundred 
piastres, or £12 sterling, for a march of between 
three and four hundred miles, from the capital 
of Egypt to the gates of Jerusalem, by the 
lower route of Arish and through Hebron, 
leaving me master of our movements, free to 
halt when and where I please, with a trifling 
payment for additional time. The tent, water- 
skins, provisions, &c. are of course at my own 
expense, and the best way is to arrange for the 
maintenance of the w^hole party, as you must 
bear the cost, whether stipulated or not. 

Every motive should induce an Englishman 
in this climate, and specially at this season, to 
live as an Arab, that is, with extreme tempe- 
rance; health and strength are at stake, and 
even a temporary failure in either may involve 
irreparable mischief. Nowhere more than in 
Syria does a man stand in need of the faculties 
of body and mind ; one access of the prevailing 
fever may deprive him of his senses or his life ; 
but with prudence, docility, and a tolerable 
constitution, he has not much more to fear in 
Palestine than in any other land; and if he 
travel in the spirit of a Christian pilgrim, the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



337 



interest of each day's journey will immeasur- 
ably surpass the privation or the risk. 

CAIRO TO JERUSALEM. 

June 27th. A fierce unclouded sun, rising 
from a dry sea of boundless sand, pours his 
level beams upon our little party as we issue 
from the northern gate of dusty Cairo, the 
camels pacing in single file and lounging swing, 
on our humble exodus from the land of Egypt 
towards the land of promise. Egypt is still, as 
heretofore, " the house of bondage ; " but, alas., 
for the heritage of Israel ! we go to find "Je- 
rusalem trodden down of the Gentiles/' and 
to behold her "pleasant portion desolate, and 
mourning because no man layeth it to heart." 

A journal of a march through the desert is 
about as barren of incident as a ship^s log, to 
which it bears great resemblance — "nil nisi 
pontus et aer" — the wind and weather being 
usually the beginning, middle, and end of each 
day's narrative — the horizon, a changeless circle 
from which the sun rises and into which he 
sinks — a solitary sail occasionally heaving in 

z 



338 NOZEANI IN 

sight at sea, and now and then a lonely string of 
camels appearing in the desert, perhaps within 
hail, perhaps hull down, but always watched 
with the same interest, steering their steady 
way through the trackless ocean or pathless 
wilderness: our course is now N.N.E., coast- 
ing along the land of Goshen, with its palms, 
Tillages and fields annually overflowed by the 
neighbouring Nile — the sand strewed with scat- 
tered fragments of petrified wood, sometimes of 
great size and weight, apparently left at high 
water-mark by some mighty flood of olden 
time. Our rate of travelling, as usual, nearly 
three miles an hour, accomplishing about thirty 
in the twenty-four, halting for a siesta from 
eleven till three p.m.; pitching for the night 
two hours after sunset, and moving again two 
hours before dawn. 

The second night brings us to Belbeis, a place 
of some consideration, but apparently of no very 
fair fame, judging by the panic which possesses 
our doughty Arab squires while in its neigh- 
bourhood. They are sad poltroons, frightened 
at their own shadows, and before I know them 
fidget me into a state of mind nearly as ridicu- 
lous as their own, marching with cocked pistols, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



339 



and expecting to be shot or speared from be- 
hind every little hillock that looms through the 
starlight. 

Leaving Belbeis, we cross some indistinct 
remains of the ancient canal connecting the 
Nile with Suez, via the city of Heroopolis, 
probably the Barneses of Exodus, whence the 
children of Israel journeyed to Siiccoth, which 
means an encampment. No variety of scenery 
or incident for the next two days, except that 
my camel suddenly tumbles down, a very unu- 
sual accident^ as the she^k declares, and one is 
willing enough to believe, as such a second 
sudden pitch is not to be desired, even upon 
smooth sand. At Salahiyeh we change our 
course to a direction nearly due east, plunging 
at once into the desert away from all vestige of 
human habitation ; nothing but salt-crusted, 
dried-up swamps, annually inundated by the 
Nile and connected with the great lake of Men- 
zalah communicating with the sea. There can 
be no doubt that this isthmus of Suez, which 
we are at present traversing, was once a strait 
of junction between the Mediterranean and the 
Bed Sea; the extreme breadth of separation is 
now about seventy miles, and appears to have 



340 



NOZRANI IN 



arisen from the accumulation of drifting sand 
during the lapse of many centuries; but the 
Birkets, or nitrous swamps, still form nearly an 
unbroken chain between Suez and the old 
Pelusiac branch of the Nile. 

The map marks our track as a "desert of 
moving sands/' to which description it well 
answers; no longer a flat wide expanse of wil- 
derness, but a multitude of low loose hills, 
through which we wind our way with toil and 
trouble, and at length, in the darkness of night, 
lose the camel track altogether, and, to make 
matters worse, lose one of the men dispatched to 
look for it. In vain we shout, let off guns, light 
fires, and waste the night in wandering about and 
about; we hear and see nothing of the absentee, 
the best man among us, and are obliged to set 
off without him, as our supply of water does 
not admit of long delay in this thirsty region 
of desolation. Being at last quite sure that 
the old shey kwas leading us south-west in- 
stead of north-east, steering for Suez instead of 
Arish, I take the law into my own hands, in- 
sisting upon being leader, and pledging myself 
to find the track in a few hours — an assumption 
of authority and skill, backed by the mysteries 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



341 



of map, compass, and telescope, which carries 
the point against all gainsay; the result, as 
might be expected, justifies a reliance upon the 
magnetic needle rather than their blundering 
guess-work. About dawn we fall in with the 
light trail of camel hoofs in the true direction, 
— a discovery hailed with a general cheer, and 
the Giaour guide, with his wizard tricks, (cha- 
ritably ascribed to a good understanding with 
the devil) rises high in the estimation of the 
Mooslim, who honour him henceforth with the 
euphonic soubriquet Doree> (Straight on,) in 
memory of the word so often shouted by the 
one, and so little trusted by the other, as we 
twisted our way by the light of the moon 
through the labyrinth of those loose drifting 
sand-hills, which, luckily for us, were not sweep- 
ing before a blinding gale of wind, as they 
sometimes do. 

Arrive before noon at the salt wells of Catieh, 
the ancient Cusium, not more than ten miles 
from the sea, where, to our great joy, we find 
poor lost Hassan, anxiously awaiting our un- 
certain appearance, and at least as much de- 
lighted at seeing us as we at meeting him ; he 
had heard the report of guns, but owing to 



342 



NOZEANI IK 



the hills could not see the lighted fires,, and so 
wandered about in great distress till he found 
a track leading to these springs, where he laid 
himself down to wait the issue, exhausted with 
hunger, thirst, and fatigue. In celebration of 
our happy release from much anxiety, we pitch 
the tent for a halt till sun-set, holding a grand 
feast of hot cakes with a smoked pilaf of rice 
and tough fowl, followed by the never-failing 
pipes and coffee, concluding with a siesta of 
three hours, fitting us for a long night's march 
through a dismal wilderness of which we see 
quite enough by the light of the lady moon 
and her brilliant stars. 

The motion of a camel is so monotonous and 
rocking, that the tendency to sleep is almost 
and sometimes altogether irresistible, especially 
to a fagged rider helplessly nid-nodding in 
the dark. I was only effectually roused from 
a fantastic desert dream by pitching upon the 
real desert sand, there to trudge till weary of 
walking, and glad once more to clamber up the 
tall side of the growling dromedary, who did 
not think proper either to kneel down or halt 
for the accommodation of the Giaour. 

The water brought from Salahiyek stinks 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



343 



so abominably we can scarcely drink it, which 
Ibraheem attributes to the goat-skins being in 
bad condition. The wells we pass at intervals 
of ten or twelve miles are too salt to be of any 
service but that of ablution, in itself, however, 
a great luxury. Where no water of any kind 
is to be had, a bath, better than none at all, 
may be obtained by digging a hole and burying 
yourself up to the neck in the fresh, gritty, 
flinty sand, several degrees cooler than the air 
on its surface. 

At Birket Aieh we meet a party of armed 
ragamuffins journeying from Syria, one of whom 
we catch drilling a hole through our last water- 
skin ; not only helping himself at our ex- 
pense to what he could imbibe, but leaving 
the priceless fluid to dribble on the thirsty 
earth. These truculent gentry were too strong 
for any show of fight on our side, so we had 
nothing for it but to cobble the skin as we could, 
and get out of reach with all expedition, not 
sure they might not think proper to put our 
long-suffering to further proof; as they proba- 
bly would, had they known that my shot-belt 
was stuffed with thirty pounds' worth of gold. 



344 NOZRANT IN 

Turkish coin, worn under a broad silk sash 
twisted tight half a dozen times round the 
body. 

We frequently during this march observed 
the sand in different places marked with light 
serpentine curves, and found to-day that they 
were caused, as Ibraheem had said, by the 
snakes which infest this neighbourhood, one of 
which, a black viper more than three feet long, 
I shot, just as he was wriggling into his hole. 
These reptiles are no doubt poisonous, both the 
camels and some live fowls we carry with us 
showing great dread of the ugly hhannash 
swinging on a stick. We catch occasional 
glimpses of more amiable inhabitants of the 
wilderness, as a troop of beautiful gazelles 
bound off in the distance, stopping to gaze at 
us when far out of harm's way. Nothing more 
graceful and elegant than these antelopes of the 
desert, and one cannot help thinking, that when 
King David speaks of m the voice of the Lord," 
that is "the peal of the thunder," causing 
Libanus and Sirion to spring like a yegel, he 
must have had one of these deer in his mind's 
eye, and not "a calf," in our acceptation— a 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 345 

beast that never performs its ungainly gambol 
without being laughed at. (Psalm xxix.)* A 
hare occasionally starts before us, and the pe- 
culiar partridge of the desert is not uncom- 
mon ; the beetles too wing their droning flight 
about our ears as the sun goes down, and 
altogether the neighbourhood of the sea gives 
far more life to this region than is found in 
the wild desolation between Cosseir and the 
Nile. The highest temperature during the 
day is 95° in the shade. A matter of great 
importance is to pitch the tent, which should 
be double, with its opening towards the wind, 



* See Lee's Lexicon, under 6C ayalah" for an explanation 
of the 8th verse of this noble Psalm ; our version reduces 
the grand image of "the thunder rending the pine-trees" 
to the twaddle of " making the hinds bring forth young." 
The verse literally rendered would read, " The voice of 
the Lord rendeth the pines and strippeth the forests." It 
is hard to be obliged to read, " maketh the hinds bring 
forth young and discovereth the thick bushes." Durum 
sed levius Jit patientia — let us. hope that this and other 
blunders, which only prove that our admirable version, like 
everything else, may be improved, will soon be rectified by 
authority; we have no right to expose any poet, far less 
an inspired one, to the imputation of drivel, brought against 
the present reading by no less an authority than Professor 
Lee. 



346 



NOZRANI IN 



almost always northerly at this season. We 
find that vinegar renders brackish water more 
drinkable, and charcoal powder is a good anti- 
septic when the skins approach putridity. The 
camels get two feeds of barley in the twenty- 
four hours, and contrive to pick up a fair al- 
lowance of prickly shrub and sedgy grass as 
they go along ; our greatest plague is travers- 
ing the greasy salt swamps, where their broad 
spongy feet make perilous slips and slides. 

July 4:th. View of the bright blue sea from 
a rising knoll: we have heard it roaring for 
many hours during the night, but the sight 
of it bursts suddenly and gloriously upon us, 
though the Arabs sympathize apparently very 
little in my delight, seeming rather to avoid 
the shore, to me so full of interest, and none 
of them think of bathing, to me so delicious 
a luxury. Both the men and the camels look 
at the white-capped w r aves as if they had no 
confidence in their sandy barrier, and would 
rather increase than lessen the distance. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



347 



SYRIA. 

July 5th. El-Arish, the old Rhinocolura 3 
terminates a long tract of deep, fagging shingle : 
we soon encamp outside its dreary walls, sur- 
rounding a great fortress and a few miserable 
huts, with no vestige of cultivation or one cir- 
cumstance of interest, but the fact of its being 
the frontier town of Syria. The dry channel 
we cross is marked on the map as the " torrent 
of Egypt," and the vast expanse beyond, of 
barren undulating gravel, tufted with meagre 
wiry grass and dwarf prickly shrubs, must 
have been a debateable land, scarcely worth 
dispute, between the Philistines of old and the 
nomadic tribes of Arabia. Our tent is no 
sooner pitched than we are honoured by a 
deputation from the town — three grave and 
reverend signiors, bearded, turbaned, and well 
mounted, anxious in their enquiries as to the 
health and peace of Egypt — " Is all well ? " 
and we answered and said, " All is well. El- 
hammdoo lillah, — 6 thanks be to God/ — the 
Nile rises, the plague is far off, and Mizr is 



348 



NOZBANT IN 



tranquil;" — upon which our visitors, alighting 
from their horses, dispatch an attendant, who 
returns in a few minutes with a couple of 
negroes bearing a tray garnished with greasy 
fried eggs, very salt cheese, and tolerable coffee, 
probably as good a tiffin as the unhappy place 
could supply; so we sit very sociably in the 
shadow of the tent, smoking the indispensable 
pipe, till the unlucky brass-bound medicine- 
chest attracts attention, and then adieu to all 
hope of rest for the remainder of the day. 
Ibraheem and his followers, by way of exalting 
themselves, trumpet the Effendee's reputation 
as a Hakim of the first water, performing won- 
drous cures upon every ill that flesh is heir to ; 
so there is nothing for it but to minister to 
ail and sundry, beginning with the great men, 
whom we dismiss highly pleased with three 
penknives and as many doses of colocynth, in 
return for their hospitality, to say nothing of 
their good offices with a guardiano of health, 
who, having fumigated us with a pan of drug- 
ged vinegar, delivers a slip of paper to be pre- 
sented at Gaza as a passe-par-tout, and takes 
his douceur and his departure without giving 
us any more trouble. Not so easily, however, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



349 



do we shake off our poor patients of El-Arish; 
all the bad eyes, all the sore places, and all 
the crooked limbs in the neighbourhood are on 
the move to the Hakim's tent, who dispenses 
pills and applies collyrium with increasing re- 
putation and fast-diminishing stock, till at last 
there is no alternative but to let fall the cur- 
tain and go to sleep, leaving Ibraheem to en- 
counter the insurrection of invalids, whom he 
had been mainly instrumental in stirring up. 
Poor people ! how gladly would a traveller do 
them any good at a greater sacrifice than a 
day's rest ! But even a skilful surgeon would 
have shaken his head at the majority of these 
cases, and left them to their own resources — 
their charms, their amulets, aud their Koran 
texts ; the latter often administered internally, 
by washing the written characters off a wooden 
board and giving the solution as a dose to the 
patient. The principal malady is ophthalmia, 
caused, no doubt, by careless exposure to the 
dazzling sand ; and disorders of the skin are 
not uncommon, probably to be ascribed to poor 
food and unwholesome water. 

Resume our march before dawn, following 
the line of coast and passing a camp of Bedouin 



350 



KOZRANI IN 



cavalry, the horses picketted, and watch-fires 
lighting up the tents and their wild soldiery. 
Reach Sheikh Jidde before noon, where toler- 
able water filters through the sand into a deep 
hole ; halt for three hours' rest under the white 
walls of the Saint's tomb, a Mooslim oratory or 
chapel, and accomplish about fifteen miles fur- 
ther, through a country gradually improving, 
before we pitch for the night at Khan Younes ; 
a Khan being a stone wall enclosure, affording 
some sort of protection to travellers in the 
desert, and open to all wayfarers, the iravhoy/iov 
{receive-all) of the good Samaritan between 
Jerusalem and Jericho, who brought the 
wounded man "to an inn," i. e. a Khan, giving 
"the host," Travho^evs, or keeper, two denaria (a 
much more respectable sum than that now 
implied by "twopence.") A keeper is not 
always found in these khans, which are usually 
built without a roof ; but when he does reside 
within the w T alls, he renders assistance to so- 
journers, and receives a gratuity at parting. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



351 



GAZA. 

Next day at noon we enter the gates of Gaza 
or Ghuza, the approach to which lies through 
extensive plantations of gigantic prickly pear, 
forming a most formidable barrier impervious 
to horse or foot ; the sharp-pointed stakes, ten 
feet and more in height, would impale a rhi- 
noceros, and even the surface of the thick leaf 
is armed with spikes that inflict a wound not 
easily forgotten. The contrast with the desert 
from which we are just emerging renders the 
neighbourhood of Gaza perfectly beautiful ; but 
its real claims to admiration are of no mean 
order;- — delicious orchards of pomegranates, 
apricots, peaches, and mulberries, now in full 
maturity — the palm, the olive, the fig, and the 
vine in high luxuriance, and the white walls of 
the city seen rising from a green paradise of 
plenty— all form a fairy scene that appears de- 
lusion to the delighted eye, weary of the dreary 
desolate waste so long and lately looked upon, 
now exchanged for a land flowing with wine 
and oil, milk and honey. Our first reception, 



352 



NOZEANI m 



however, within these favoured walls is by no 
means encouraging ; the camels no sooner have 
their noses within the gates than they are rudely 
seized by Turkish soldiers, and we are all after 
a brief question marched off, without a word of 
explanation, to a wretched dismal fortification, 
where, being safely locked in, we learn to our 
dismay that we are tenants of the Lazaretto, 
there to remain during the good pleasure of 
the quarantine authorities, lately established to 
our cost, and apparently resolved to sweep as 
clean as new brooms usually do. If being in 
a prodigious rage would have helped us out, 
we could have got up a towering passion with- 
out much effort, under the influence of com- 
bined injury and insult. Never was a more 
villainous place for honest men to be thrust 
into, nor a more cavalier fashion of doing it ; 
the passport from our friend at Arish not even 
glanced at, and we ourselves given to under- 
stand that we were all liable to be shot for 
being without a clean bill of health from Cairo. 
u What does all this mean, O Ibraheem ?" said 
I to the blank-visaged old sheyk, sitting with- 
out his turban on a bale of cotton, and looking 
as if he could tear his long beard for vexation 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



353 



— " Some new device of Sheytan, O EfFendee." 
" Shall we get out to-morrow ? " — " Inshallah 1 
Allah hoo dlam " — 66 If it please God : who 
knoweth all things." 

A night passed under these auspices was not 
likely to be very lively ; the dreaming visions 
of plague, infection, incarceration, and eke of 
execution, not being much brightened by the 
actual abominations of a solitary cell, where the 
rats and other vermin seemed little tolerant of 
intrusion. I could luckily just muster cool 
sense enough, in this reeking hole, to remember 
that fretting and fuming would only induce 
a Syrian fever, and so philosophized as well as 
could be expected, and in the usual strain. 
Besides, we had come to Gaza, and having 
fallen like many better men into the hands 
of the Philistines, must bide our time and bear 
our doom. A little iron lamp shining from the 
vault gave light enough to read how Shamgar 
and Samson and Saul fought and smote and 
slew the uncircumcised race of old ; and I soon 
began to think it was something to be at Gaza, 
the capital of Philistia, even though shut up 
in the vile durance of a Turkish pest-house; 
so I said my prayers in peace and went to 

2 a 



354 



NOZRANI IN 



sleep, dreaming of the Book of Judges, Sam- 
son Agonistes, and the old picture where in 
days of childhood I used to see with delighted 
wonder, the hero of Israel walking up the hill 
with a gate on his back like Temple Bar. 

The morning brought comfort in the shape 
of a lingua franca message from the captain 
of the guard, apologizing for the rough treat- 
ment, and conveying his Excellency's gracious 
invitation to pipes and coffee — an overture of 
course received and accepted with great ala- 
crity, which soon begets a good understanding ; 
so after something less than twenty-four hours' 
imprisonment, as the penalty for neglect of rule, 
we found the gates open and went on our way 
rejoicing. 

The ancient remains of Gaza are few and of 
little importance; here and there shafts and ca- 
pitals of broken columns, but all belonging to 
an sera far later than that which some fourteen 
centuries b. c. invests the city with its peculiar 
interest in our eyes. The Mooslim hold the 
name of Samson the Judge of Israel in high 
veneration, as a saint of the first order, and 
point out the site of the gate, "the doors of 
which and the two posts, bar and all, he put 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 355 

upon his shoulders, carrying them to the top 
of a hill before Hebron." (Judges xvi.) He- 
bron, as the crow flies, is nearly fifty miles 
from Gaza; so the strength to carry such a 
burthen, such a distance, must have been of 
course supernatural, and may not appear to us 
to have been exercised for any adequate or pro- 
portionate purpose; perhaps yal peney means 
in the direction of Hebron ; but circumstantial 
criticism is not applicable to these primitive 
records of a nation, whose epoch and litera- 
ture are so remote from our own, and whose 
theocratic polity finds so little parallel in any 
conceivable system of modern times. We search 
the Hebrew Scriptures, because the Law, the 
Psalms, and the Prophets bear witness to the 
Truth, the Way, and the Life, as declared in 
the Christian gospel — a testimony which runs 
like a golden thread through the dark tissue of 
weakness, wickedness, and uncertainty, w^hich 
human history must always be, whether of Jew 
or Gentile; and we are not called upon to 
distinguish, on peril of our salvation, between 
prosaic narrative and poetic hyperbole in the 
meagre annals of a peculiar people, who existed 
under unprecedented conditions more than 

2 a2 



356 



KOZRAXI IN 



three thousand years ago. What we hold is* 
that "the Old Testament is not contrary to 
the New, because in both everlasting life is 
offered to mankind by Christ;" but as to wha^ 
is meant by J oshua's " sun and moon standing 
still*," or any similar statement involving insu- 
perable difficulty, or impenetrable obscurity 
we may safely avoid forming an opinion : the 
answer of the Teacher come from God to an 
unnecessary question was, " What is that to 
thee? follow thou Me." 

* Joshua's staying the course of the sun and moon, 
suggests itself merely because perhaps, in the literal accep- 
tation, the most startling statement in the Old Testament, 
having long been and still continuing to be a source of 
cavil or scruple. If we were at liberty to distinguish the 
actual words of Joshua from those of the narrator, i.e. the 
12th from the* 13th verse of the 10th chapter of the book, 
we might find a possible solution to the difficulty in the 
signification of the Hebrew word doom, meaning to be silent, 
which applied figuratively to the sun and moon, would be 
to withhold their light, veiled by the clouds of the miracu- 
lous storm of which we read in the preceding verse. Some* 
argument at least specious might be adduced in behalf of 
this supposition from the apologetic or defensive tone of 
the reference to " the book of Jasher clearly not the 
style of one speaking with the authority of inspiration ; 
rather, one might think, of a marginal commentator, who 
followed the author of Jasher, in paraphrasing doom, to be 
silent, by the verb yarned, he stood, or paused. 



EGYPT AND STRIA. 



357 



The present town of G aza is the most popu- 
lous in Palestine, containing, they say, not less 
than fifteen thousand souls, among whom may 
be about three or four hundred Christians. The 
streets are narrow ; the houses, as usual, flat- 
roofed and chiefly built of clay or sun-baked 
brick, except those in the upper city on the hill, 
which are of stone; the general aspect of the 
place is far more indicative of well-being than 
anything we have seen in Egypt, with the ex- 
ception of Cairo. The inhabitants are a tall, 
handsome race, and the camels very large and 
sleek, making our poor, scraggy Bedouins look 
quite ashamed of themselves ; so altogether our 
first impression of Syria under the rule of the 
Turk, is far more favourable than we antici- 
pated. The distance of the town from the sea- 
shore, over sandy clowns, is about four miles, 
and the ruins of Ascalon probably fifteen. The 
most interesting building is an old Christian 
church, perhaps of the date of Helena, A.D. 
350, now a Mohammadan mosque, with nave, 
aisles, and Corinthian columns, in good preser- 
vation, and well developed, as in all mosques, 
by the absence of lumber. Excepting what we 
read of Gaza in Scripture, it makes no great 



358 



NOZRANI IN 



figure in history: it was taken, after an obstinate 
defence, by Alexander the Great, B.C. 320, 
and then is little spoken of till the time of the 
Crusaders, though Antoninus Martyr, in the 
seventh century, calls it "civitas splendida 
deliciosa et honestissima.-" It afterwards fell 
into the hands of the Saracens, till rescued 
by the Christian army in the twelfth century, 
when it is spoken of by William of Tyre as 
"diruta et habitatoribus carens," L e. ruinous 
and deserted. 

July 10. The hills of Judea rise majestically 
in the east, and, long before the sun climbs 
their blue and rugged summits, we are pacing 
our slow but steady course to the village of 
Huiy through fertile plains of uninclosed arable 
country where the people are busy treading out 
their corn, on threshing-floors of hard beaten 
clay, observing the merciful Mosaic precept, 
" Thou shalt not muzzle the ox." The popu- 
lation seems very scanty, but the capability of 
the soil unbounded. The uncertain tenure of 
life and property appears in everything around 
us; all the men are armed with long guns, 
even when employed in the peaceful pursuits of 
agriculture; Ibraheem and his followers seem 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



359 



half frightened out of their senses, and one 
begins to appreciate the iron-fisted sway of the 
old Basha, who at least ensures security from 
any violence but that of his own myrmidons. 
The present condition of matters verges upon 
anarchy — the Egyptian government overturned, 
the Turkish scarcely established, and every 
man's claim left to the vindication of his own 
weapon. We constantly meet well-mounted^ 
fierce-looking horsemen, armed to the teeth, 
and we travel no longer when the sun is down, 
encamping the first night after a march of 
twenty-five miles at the village of Suhariyeh 3 
the sheyk of which sends us a guard. 



HEBKON. 

The next day changes the aspect of the 
scenery; the plains begin to swell into hills, 
and the hills to grow bold and rugged, as we 
cross the ridge which runs north and south, 
where the rocks were terraced in time of old 
for a careful cultivation of the olives and vines, 
which still flourish in great luxuriance, among 
a thick underwood of beautiful shrubs; and 



360 



NOZEANI IX 



now we look down upon the honoured site of 
the patriarchal Hebron, with its white walls, 
flat roofs, tall minarets, and round domes, lying 
on the sloping side of a lovely valley, upon 
which the western sun pours his setting beams 
—the Hebron of Abraham, the Kirjath Arba 
of the land of Canaan, where he mourned and 
wept and spake to the sons of Heth, saying, " I 
am a stranger and sojourner with you; give 
me a possession of a burying-place with you, 
that I may bury my dead out of my sight." 
What an exquisite Oriental picture is the whole 
scene between the patriarchal "mighty prince 5 ' 
and Ephron the son of Zoar, as given in the 
23rd chapter of Genesis! "Abraham stood up 
and bowed himself to the people of the land." 
The parley for the cave of Machpelah was 
never surpassed in dignity, simplicity, and pa- 
thos; yet it was a bona fide bargain, a real 
transaction, neither more nor less than a pur- 
chase of land, where Ephron names his price 
and Abraham pays it ; no doubt the full value 
— "four hundred shekels of silver, current 
money with the merchant." The Hittite never 
intended bestowing a foot of the inheritance of 
his fathers upon a stranger for nothing. w The 



EGYPT AND SYHIA. 361 

field give I thee, what is it between me and 
thee?" was only a form of Eastern courtesy, a 
preliminary politeness as much in vogue now as 
it was then ; and two Bedouin sheyks of high 
rank in the present day would, under similar cir- 
cumstance, probably use the selfsame language, 
meaning the selfsame thing, — so unchanging is 
the stamp that marks the men and manners of 
the nomadic blood. It is to the fact of its being 
the burial-place of the patriarchs that Hebron 
owes its high sanctity among the Mooslim, as 
one of the four "Holy Cities," dedicated, as 
its name El-KhulU implies, to "the Friend," 
that is, to him who is distinguished in Scrip- 
ture by the epithet <j>Cko$ Qeov } or Ohev Ulohim, 
in our version the "Friend of God." (Isaiah xli. 
8 ; James ii. 23.) David moreover was "king 
in Hebron over the house of Judah seven years 
and six months;" and here it was, over the 
pool in Hebron, that he hanged up the mur- 
derers of Ish-bosheth, and buried the severed 
head in the sepulchre of Abner ; see 2 Samuel 
iv. 12. 

Here, within a little silent solitary tent, 
through whose open curtains the bright stars 
of heaven are shining — here, in the very valley 



362 



NOZRANI IN 



of Hebron, in the field of Ephron, and over 
against the cave of Machpelah, one feels it a 
high and happy privilege to read, in the lan- 
guage in which they were written, these pri- 
mitive records of ancient time, these simple 
annals of primaeval history, sacred as the me- 
dium through which the Oracles of God have 
declared from the beginning, by the sure Word 
of Prophecy, His will and way to Jew and 
Gentile, in the One Mediator, whose "day 
Abraham saw and was glad." These Scrip- 
tures of the olden covenant we have known 
from childhood, and to them we reverently 
look as having prepared the world for the re- 
velation of that true wisdom of Faith, Hope, 
and Charity, which can alone make us w T ise 
unto salvation. 

Who on such ground as this would not 
rather lodge in a tent than between four walls ? 
Though the heat would of itself induce us to 
pass the night alfresco, even were a palace pre- 
pared ; so we decline a kind invitation to enter 
the town, knowing too well what one has to 
expect from a Syrian house in the dog-days. 
The morning dawns over a most lovely land- 
scape; indeed thus far a land of wine and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



363 



oil; as well as milk and honey. Our breakfast 
tray is served en -prince with the richest milk, 
the finest fruits, and mountain mutton: the 
terraced vineyards rising tier on tier, trellised 
and festooned, teem with the golden and purple 
grapes that gladden the heart of man — the olive, 
the promegranate, the quince, the apricot, and 
the fig, wave to the warm breeze in the luxu- 
riant profusion of nature's happiest mood — the 
threshing-floors are piled round with heaps on 
heaps of new harvest wheat — the white oxen 
pacing their patient and placid circle tread out 
corn yielding as heavy increase as ever rewarded 
the toil of the kind kinsman of Naomi — the 
flocks are bleating and the herds lowing on the 
hill, and nothing but water is wanting to make 
"the field of Machpelah before Mamre" as 
bright a picture as ever delighted the eye of 
a Gaspar Poussin. 

Two very ancient pools are seen to the north 
and south of the town, supposed to be of earlier 
construction than the reign of David : tradition 
points out one of them as that over which the 
king hanged up "the wicked man who slew 
a righteous person in his own house upon a 
bed/' (2 Samuel iv. 11.) These immense tanks, 



364 



KOZIiAKI IN 



the largest of which is fifty paces each way, 
and more than twenty feet deep, are lined 
with very massive masonry, and constitute ap- 
parently the only supply of water upon which 
the inhabitants of Hebron can depend, as the 
fountains are dry in the hot season. The city 
itself is remarkably well built of stone, and 
from the flat roofs rise little white domes that 
produce a singular and picturesque effect. The 
Sanctum Sanctorum of the holy town is the 
Great Mosque, built immediately over the tomb 
of the Father of the faithful: but herein no 
Christian is permitted to set foot : the outer 
walls, to which alone we can approach, are 
of prodigious solidity, built of hewn stones 
fifteen to twenty feet long, referred to a period 
at least as remote as that of Solomon, B.C. 1000. 
One can only glance by stealth even at this 
enclosure, for Nozrdni is looked upon with an 
evil eye in this stronghold of Islam : enough 
for him to know that here is the sepulchre of 
Abraham, whom his sons Isaac and Ishmael 
buried in the cave of Machpelah ; " there was 
Abraham buried and Sarah his wife, 5 ' nearly 
four thousand years ago, in the field that was 
made a sure possession unto him and his heirs 



EGYPT AND SjTRIA. 



365 



for ever. The thread of tradition as to this 
locality is unbroken, and its authority never 
questioned. 

The Bazaars of Hebron, as the narrow stall- 
crowded, canvas-covered lanes are called, pre- 
sent a fair display of merchandize, towards 
which Manchester and Birmingham contribute 
their quota. The show of meat, vegetables, 
and fruit gives evidence of a land of plenty. 
According to the information obtained by Dr. 
Robinson, the population amounts to about ten 
thousand souls, all strict Mooslim, with the 
exception of two or three hundred J ews. The 
principal sources of wealth are of course agri- 
cultural, the manufacture being confined to 
the production of coarse glass lamps and mock 
jewellery. The town stands nearly twenty miles 
due west from the Dead Sea, the same distance 
due south of Jerusalem, and about forty due 
east from Gaza, built principally on the eastern 
slope of a valley, itself not much less than 
three thousand feet above the Mediterranean, 
but at least a thousand feet below the lofty 
ridge which runs north and south as the back- 
bone of Judsea. A magnificent oak, standing 
in the midst of a field, is held in high vene- 



366 



N^ZRANI IN 



ration by Mooslim and Jew, as the repre- 
sentative of the "Oaks of Mamre," among 
which the patriarch dwelt; but we lose the 
charm of this by being accustomed to trans- 
late " alonei Mamre" as the "plains of Mamre," 
where Abraham sat in the tent door in the 
heat of the day. (Gen. xviii. 1.) 

Tuesday, July 12th. A day by me to be 
much remembered. Six hours' march from 
Hebron, and we look upon the hill of Beth- 
lehem, the city of David, "where unto us was 
born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Yet 
another hour, and we see the hills that stand 
about Jerusalem — we approach to Zion — I 
spring from the slow and jaded camel, impa- 
tient of the howling song of the Arab, and 
eager to be alone — the brow of a rugged rock 
is gained, and behold 

JEEUS ALEM ! 

Pilgrim ! u commune with thine own heart 
and be still." Tell the towers of Zion — mark 
well her bulwarks! Look upon those wild 
rocky depths, and high embattled turrets, with 
a steady and silent gaze that may imprint them 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



367 



now and for ever upon thy mind and memory 
— look upon Jerusalem till the scene which 
is hallowed in heaven and earth grows dim 
through a mist of rising tears ; for among the 
myriad of confused and broken thoughts that 
throng so thickly upon thee, there is one that 
at length prevails, of unmingled though unem- 
bittered sadness : 

" When He came near, He beheld the 
city and wept over it." 

God grant, through the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who thus wept over the wayward 
and devoted city, that we who learn the sorrows 
of Him who for our sakes was acquainted with 
grief, may, while it is yet called our day, "know 
the things which belong unto our peace !" 

Well did the Royal Bard and warrior of Israel 
sing of Jerusalem as built "at unity in itself." 
How strong, compact, and lofty does it look, 
frowning from those huge crags that rise from 
the deep and rugged ravines that compass it 
about ! and how sublime and fit the desolation 
that reigns around in these stern, barren, shat- 
tered rocks, that once beheld the sun darken 
over the Cross of Calvary ! 



368 



KOZRANI IN 



The camels are well content to halt on the 
steep and flinty track below : — there let them 
rest, w^hile the map is spread and the com- 
pass steadied on this broad stone, that we may- 
know and name "the hills that stand about 
Jerusalem." 

That brown eastern slope, up which the 
lengthening shadows of the precipitous city 
are slowly creeping, cannot be mistaken; it 
must by those scattered olives which soften 
its stony desolation, be the mount whither 
" Jesus went as He was wont' 5 to spend the 
night in prayer and alone. 

The dark ravine, down which the eye sees 
but dimly, is the valley of J ehoshaphat, through 
which runs the now dry channel of the brook 
Kedron, dividing the Mount of Olives from the 
towering height of Moriah, once crowned with 
the temple of the Great King, now topped by 
the glittering mosques of Aksa and Omar, glan- 
cing in white and gold under the western sun. 
The bold barren hill on this side the Mount of 
Olives is the Mount of Offence, where "Solo- 
mon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomi- 
nation of Moab, in the hill that is before J eru- 
salein." (1 Kings ii. 7.) The nearest branch 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



369 



of the steep glen running east and west at 
right angles to the vale of J ehoshaphat, must 
be the valley of the son of Hinnom, the fearful 
Gehenna, where the apostate kings caused their 
children to pass through the fire to Moloch, 
hence made to figure, in Scripture language, 
the dread region of wailing and gnashing of 
teeth, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is 
not quenched. Of these, and more than these, 
there can be neither denial nor doubt ; no truth 
more assured than that these are the very moun- 
tains, rocks, and valleys so often trodden and 
beheld by the anointed Saviour of the world. 

Turn round to the south, and we see the 
heights of Bethlehem, two miles distant; its 
huge massive convent — a fortress that might 
laugh a siege to scorn — looking upon the white 
town piled in a steep pyramid upon the neigh- 
bouring hill. There " unto us the Child was 
born " — there the Virgin brought forth her 
Son, and called His Name Immanuel. And 
yonder again to the north, dimly seen through 
the minarets and pinnacles of the Holy City, 
rises the Christian dome which marks the se- 
pulchre where they laid the Lord ! How many 
millions of hearts have throbbed since then, in 

2b 



370 



NOZRANI IN 



high, and holy mood, as they looked hence upon 
the scene before us, so indissolubly, mysteri- 
ously, and awfully connected with the history 
and destiny of man as he was, and is, and is 
to be ! And how truly is the word fulfilled, 
that " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the 
Gentiles ! " What pilgrim of the Cross can 
look upon that pale crescent of the false pro- 
phet, gleaming above the sacred emblem of the 
true Faith, or that crimson flag of Islam flout- 
ing defiance to Christendom from the walls of 
Zion, without feeling his blood mantle to his 
cheek in the wounded spirit of a crusader ! But 
this is not the mood wherewith to enter the 
City of the Prince of Peace : those who in His 
Name and for His sake would strike with the 
sword, know not what spirit they are of. 

Arriving at the Western or Bethlehem gate, 
we are allowed to enter by the Turkish guard 
after a brief examination; and passing under 
the shadow of the lofty massive tower of David, 
are conducted through a narrow lonely street 
of rugged pavement and solid masonry to the 
great Latin convent, occupying the extreme 
western angle of the city walls ; here, after a 
short parley with the superior, we are admit- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



371 



ted by a lay brother, who assigns me a stone- 
vaulted, white-washed apartment, furnished with 
two chairs, a table, and rude bedstead, where I 
forthwith establish myself, with a feeling of joy 
and thankfulness at having thus far accomplished 
in health and safety, the long-revolved project 
to which I had for years looked forward with 
a wish which was alone father to the hope. 

Ibraheem and his followers are not received 
within the precincts of the monastery, so I 
take leave of them outside. They have proved 
themselves good men and true: the evil bodings 
of my Frank acquaintance at Cairo were ill- 
founded. They said it was unwise and unsafe 
to trust such irregular and irresponsible vaga- 
bonds; but they have not only been faithful 
and honest, but kind and courteous, after their 
untutored fashion — in the right sense of the 
word courtesy, which is independent of rank, 
circumstance, kindred, or language — the innate 
breeding of a well-conditioned nature, whether 
civilized or savage, in the palace of a prince 
or the hovel of a peasant. Poor fellows ! they 
have shown as devout a horror of thieves and 
murderers as any honest man could desire, if 

2b2 



372 



NOZKANI IN 



not a little more, for our only approach to a 
quarrel has been from an attempted interference 
with the line of route or stations for halt, on 
the everlasting plea of harramiyeh, or robbers ; 
though one might have supposed the " cantabit 
vacuus " their special prerogative. We settle 
accounts very amicably. I give them a written 
declaration of perfect satisfaction ; and then^ 
with mutual esteem and interchange of pre- 
sents, we part never to meet again in this world 
— how trite and yet how strange a thought ! I 
watch their swarthy, half-naked, slow-swinging 
figures, tucked up on the tall scraggy camels, 
till, at the angle of a narrow gloomy street, 
they wave their last salam to the Frank Ef- 
fendee, who returns alone, almost with regret, 
through the dark, heavy, vaulted gateway of 
the ancient and honoured convent. 

The room that I occupy looks upon a court, 
from which a flight of steps leads to a flat roof, 
and here, once more before the day closes, I 
spread the map and open the compass. Thanks 
to the Plan of Sieber and Catherwood, taken 
out of Dr. Robinson's book and secured upon 
pasteboard, one needs no guide, no vulgar gab- 
bling cicerone, with his got-up sing-song of 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



373 



stupid lies ; here we have Jerusalem before us 
and below us, with every hill, every valley, 
every tower, dome, and minaret marked and 
named in truth and soberness. The city from 
this western point is seen in its whole extent, 
magnificently lighted up by the sun sinking 
behind us : its aspect is of the stern severe 
grandeur that so well becomes the stupendous 
and awful deeds of which it has been the centre 
— no sound or sight of gaiety or gentleness, no 
stir of traffic — no throng or hum of the busy 
human hive — silent, massive, and solitary within 
— wild, barren, and desolate without. 

The dome of the Christian church, which 
marks the Holy Sepulchre, rises scarcely a hun- 
dred yards from where we stand. Close by are 
the Greek and Coptic convents. Beyond them, 
south of the church, the open space marked, on 
the map, as the ruined palace of the once power- 
ful Knights of St. John. These sites, with the 
Armenian and Syrian convents, and our own 
Episcopal church, whose walls have not yet 
risen, are all that by name, or profession, or 
worship bear witness to the Gospel of Christ, 
in the City where He taught, over which He 
wept, where He was crucified, dead and bu- 



374 



NOZRANI IN 



ried, rising again the third day to ascend into 
Heaven and sit at the right hand of God. How 
hard to realize is the overwhelming conviction 
that here has been appointed, from the founda- 
tion of the world, the scene of these inscrutable, 
ineffable mysteries. — "Lord, I believe; help 
Thou mine unbelief." 

The one predominant feature within the walls 
is the immense oblong height of Mount Moriah, 
running north and south between us and the 
Mount of Olives. This we know was the holy 
hill where Solomon built the house of the Lord 
a thousand years before His coming, and to 
which, yet a thousand years earlier, the word 
of the Lord directed Abraham, saying, " Take 
now thine only son Isaac, and get thee to the 
land of Moriah, and offer him for a burnt of- 
fering upon one of the mountains which I will 
tell thee of." This rocky platform of Moriah 
may be considered as an eminence of Mount 
Zion ; it is now entirely occupied by the pre- 
cincts of the two great mosques, Omar, and 
Aksa, with domes and madnehs, or minarets, 
of great magnificence towering over the deep 
defile of Jehoshaphat. 

The coup-aVoeil of the city is altogether un- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



375 



like any other that I have yet seen. The pre- 
dominant character is ponderous gloom; the 
heavy grey stone houses are all flat-roofed, sur- 
mounted as at Hebron by white domes, the 
number of which strikes the eye as the leading 
peculiarity in the style of architecture. Several 
extensive spaces are cleared and deserted ; but 
no trees, no birds, no verdure, no softening em- 
bellishment. If there be beauty in Jerusalem, 
or in the hills that stand round about her, it is 
the sublime beauty of stern endurance, "for 
Jerusalem is ruined," — " her house is left unto 
her desolate." 

" Still o'er her head the clouds of sorrow roll, 
And God's revenge sits heavy on her soul." 

The sun sinks behind the mountains of 
Ephraim, gilding with dusky grandeur the 
volcanic chaos that frowns over the Dead Sea 
— the deep shadow of the city has reached the 
rounded top of eastern Olivet — the cord-girt, 
sandal-shod monks, with dark cowls thrown 
back from their shaven crowns, are pacing, 
rosary in hand, upon the battlemented roof — 
the dry elastic air freshens after the fiery heat 
of the day — "it is evening; it will be fair 
weather, for the sky is red." — Even so — the 



376 



NOZRANI IN 



face of the sky is legible as heretofore, but are 
we better skilled to read "the signs of the 
times" than the hypocrites of old? — There are 
red and lowering signs abroad that he who runs 
may read for signs of " distress of nations with 
perplexity." But though there be tribulation 
in the world, we may still be of good cheer as 
the servants of Him who has overcome the 
world., if we can but discern among ourselves 
the appointed sign of the victorious soldiership 
of His banner — " By this shall men know that 
ye are My disciples, if ye love one another." 

Ask these burly heavy-striding monks of 
Rome, before they descend the broad night 
to chant the vespers, how much they love 
the neighbouring worshippers of the same Lord, 
the tenants of yonder monastic walls, Greek, 
Armenian, and Copt ; then ask of Greek, Ar- 
menian, and Copt, how much they love the 
Roman, or each other ; and lastly, if you, the 
questioner, presume to profess and call yourself 
Christian without bearing the badge of either 
Roman, Greek, Armenian, or Copt, ask one and 
all how much love they bear to you as a disciple 
of their Master ? Alas ! one and all to each 
and other will mete the same measure, and for 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



377 



yourself be assured will it be specially pressed 
down, shaken together, and running over — 
Anathema Maranatha ! 

The Samaritans of old had no dealings with 
the Jews — the fierce thunder of excommunica- 
tion rolled from Moriah to Gerizim, and from 
Gerizim to Moriah ; but eighteen hundred years 
ago, the days were accomplished that both Jews 
and Samaritans should hear the unwelcome 
truth, that neither to Jerusalem nor Gerizim 
was granted an exclusive spiritual charter ; then 
was it declared that the acceptable worship 
sought from every soul of man, in every nation 
under heaven, is that which bows down to God 
in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in 
righteousness of life : Unity of Spirit, not uni- 
formity of opinion — peace, not persecution — 
practice, not profession. "Go ye and learn 
what this meaneth, I will have * mercy and not 
sacrifice" — learn that Charity is the greatest of 
the abiding Three — that no Faith availeth but 
that which " worketh through charity" — that in 
vain we may plead prophecies and wondrous 
works done in His name if we have not minis- 

* QekcQ, i. e. ec I desire," or " demand ;" " will have" may 
seem obscure. (Matt. ix. 13.) 



378 



NOZKAXI Of 



tered to the hungry, the naked, the stranger, 
and the prisoner! How hard a lesson is all 
this for the heart of man to receive — how he 
evades it, disputes it, and denies it — how much 
rather would he call down fire than love from 
that heaven whose " God is love ! B Jew and 
Samaritan, Greek and Eoman, Copt and Ar- 
menian — in all these the old leaven of malice 
still ferments : and not in these alone, but in 
the whole human lump — the same east and 
west, north and south, at home and abroad. 
Give to any one of them or us the power to 
burn, and the price of fagots will rise apace. 
The kingdom of the Prince of Peace is not of 
this world, — "when He comes shall He find 
faith upon the earth?" 

The sun has set, the monks are gone, and I 
stand alone upon the roof, watching the stars as 
they begin to twinkle on the Mount of Olives, 
and musing upon the TTord of God made of 
none effect through the traditions of men, when 
hark ! the silence of evening is broken by the 
Mooezzin from the neighbouring minaret deep- 
ly bellowing his loud-mouthed lie to heaven 
and earth, Ashadoo b.nnali jfohammad rasool 
Allah ! — " I assert that Mohammad is the Pro- 
phet of God.*' 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



379 



The lay-brother announces supper, and I go 
down to a solitary mess of mutton, good bread, 
fine grapes, and red rough-flavoured wine ; the 
water is drawn from a tank before the door, 
and an iron jug of it on the table affords various 
specimens of very lively long-tailed curiosities, 
luckily on a small scale. 

Carry my leathern mattress to the roof, and 
sleep soundly in the cool night air of the lofty 
city, 2600 feet above the Mediterranean, from 
which it is distant thirty miles due east, lati- 
tude 32°, and longitude 35° from Greenwich. 

Deliver letters to the Anglican Bishop, and 
meet with a courteous reception. But the 
health of Dr. Alexander was already impaired 
when I had the honour of being introduced, and 
this of course rendered him less accessible to 
strangers, than from his acknowledged kindness 
they would otherwise have confidently hoped. 
He is now gone from the fitful scene of this 
world, hurried away as it might seem to us in 
mid career of a high stewardship. But who are 
we that we should judge of times and seasons ? 
What can the concentration of all human wis- 
dom and learning achieve toward giving us the 
history of one hour in the new time and season 



380 



NOZRANI IN 



that awaits us beyond the grave? Who can 
tell whether we be honourably summoned for 
higher service, or ignominiously recalled for 
abuse of trust? My revered friend, the late 
Bishop of Lichfield, who gave me the intro- 
duction — gone too! both men scarcely culmi- 
nating on the meridian of life — Fiat Voluntas! 
and let our words be few. 

One matter of early congratulation in the 
Syrian tour, is the meeting my friend the Rev. 
George Williams, fellow of King's, and chaplain 
to the Bishop at Jerusalem : the old vaults of 
the city rang one fine evening to his cheer, 
as our hats went up with a "Floreat Etona!" 
Lord Castlereagh too, whom I had seen at 
Cairo and elsewhere, arrived a little later, and 
strengthened our English knot by the frank- 
hearted kindness of a nobleman. 

CIRCUIT OF THE WALLS. 

Perhaps the best way to convey one's im- 
pression of the Holy City is to make a log of 
two or three walks round about, beginning 
with a circuit outside the walls, which are in 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



381 



themselves, as we shall see, by no means the 
least interesting feature of Jerusalem as it is. 

Leaving the heavy gloomy portals of the 
Latin Convent, let us issue by the narrow, 
rugged, but clean streets, through the great 
western gate, known as that of Bethlehem, 
or Jaffa, or Hebron, overshadowed by the 
huge citadel commonly called by the crusa- 
ding chroniclers the " Tower of David," but 
no doubt of Roman construction, probably that 
of Hadrian, on the site and apparently the 
foundation of the old tower of Hippicus, des- 
cribed by J osephus. The lower tiers of stone 
are prodigiously massive, ten or twelve feet in 
length. Turning to the left or south, we 
descend the ravine, and climb the opposite 
side to gain a view of the turreted, loop-holed, 
and embattled walls, built by the crusaders, 
frequently upon the foundations and with the 
material of the old fortification of the ^Elia 
Capitolina, or City of Hadrian; in their turn 
usually following the lines and piling upon the 
remains of the bulwarks levelled by Titus, 
a.d. 70. 

About a quarter of a mile south of the Jaffa 
gate, just beyond the aqueduct which brings 



382 



NOZBAKT m 



water from Bethlehem, we come to one of the pe- 
culiar characteristics of the old city, an immense 
reservoir for the winter rains, formed by build- 
ing two massive walls or dams, running east and 
west across the rocky ravine, leaving the sides 
north and south to their natural rugged pre- 
cipice. The length of this "lower pool," now 
recognised as that mentioned by Isaiah, (chap, 
xxii. 9,) is about two hundred yards, and its 
breadth not quite half as much ; the depth at 
the lower or southern end is of course greater 
than that of the upper, but perhaps averages 
thirty to forty feet. Half a mile higher up is 
another similar but smaller pool, to which se- 
veral allusions are made in scripture under the 
name of "the upper pool on the highway of 
the fuller's field.*' (2 Kings xviii. 17; Isaiah 
xxxvi. 2, &c.) The superfluous waters from 
the upper would naturally find their way to the 
lower and larger reservoir, situate in the same 
channel. 

A few days' residence in Palestine, especially 
at this season, makes one thoroughly understand 
the repeated and emphatic allusions, both lite- 
ral and figurative, with which Scripture abounds, 
to wells, springs, fountains, dew, rain, and ri- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



383 



vers of running or living water, — to water, in 
short, under all its aspects, to our eyes so fa- 
miliar, and therefore so unheeded a blessing of 
God's providence. 

The whole neighbourhood of Jerusalem is 
lofty limestone rock, for nine months in the 
year as dry as a bone ; during the remaining 
three, the winter rains descend in torrents, and 
upon these torrents the inhabitants in all times 
have mainly depended for their constant sup- 
ply; hence the expedient of the public and 
private reservoirs with which the city and 
its vicinity so amply abound. "The pools" 
are all of undoubted Biblical antiquity, and 
enumerated by Solomon himself as among his 
high achievements : " I made me great works. 

I made me pools of water." (Eccl. ii. 46.) 

Nearly every house in Jerusalem is provided 
w T ith a subterranean tank or cistern for the same 
purpose, closed round with masonry, into which 
a bucket is lowered through a round opening 
like a well. The Latin Convent boasts of being 
able to supply all the Christions of their com- 
munion within the walls. It is owing to these 
precautions that Jerusalem has always been 
able, in spite of its droughty soil and climate, 



384 



NOZRAKI IN 



to secure a sufficiency of the vital element, even 
wlien its besiegers outside have been perishing 
with thirst, as the inhabitants would of course 
take care, under such circumstances, to cut the 
aqueduct and empty the pools : hence Strabo's 
description of Jerusalem* — "a rocky strong- 
walled fortress, within well supplied with water, 
but outside altogether dry." 

Talking of water in the Holy City naturally 
leads to the sacred subject of baptism: "Born 
of water and the Spirit " — " go ye baptize all 
nations" — "he that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved/' What is this baptism — this out- 
ward visible form of a spiritual grace held gene- 
rally necessary to salvation ? — Is it dipping, or 
pouring, or sprinkling, or is it any and all of 
these ? The Greek word, we know, signifies to 
dip, stain, or dye, and therefore the appeal must 
be made to primitive practice. Now as the 
rite was instituted in a city where dipping could 
scarcely be performed, we may safely conclude 
that it would not be required. That three thou- 
sand people (Acts ii. 41) should be dipped in 



* 7T€TpCO$€S €V€pK€S epVfJLCl. CVTOS fX€P €VvdpOV, €KTOS 

rravreKcos hi^pov. 



EGYPT AND SYBIA. 



one day at Jerusalem, under the circumstances 
of the church at that time, would not be very- 
far from a physical, to say nothing of a moral, 
impossibility; the moral part of the matter 
consisting in Oriental scruples, totally opposed 
then as now to the impurity of repeated immer- 
sions in still water. The domestic cisterns are 
altogether unadapted as we have seen to such a 
purpose : it is quite certain that the public au- 
thorities would never have permitted the great 
pools to be so defiled, and the neighbourhood 
offers no other alternative. We may then, it 
would appear even from these considerations 
— and there are more — safely conclude that 
immersion is not an essential circumstance in 
the administration of the Holy Sacrament of 
Baptism, in its spirit and truth ; a sacred rite 
whose efficacy depends 66 not upon the wash- 
ing away of the filth of the flesh, but in the 
answer of a good conscience towards God." 
(1 Peter iii. 21.) To avoid recurring to this 
subject again, it may be as well to anticipate 
a little, by saying that the Jordan is the only 
river deserving of the name throughout the 
Holy Land, and that its deep narrow channel 
is very ill adapted to the dipping of a multi- 

2 c 



386 



nozrani m 



tude. Again, when the eunuch of Queen Can- 
dace is baptized near Gaza, we may certainly 
conclude against immersion, as there is neither 
stream nor lake in that thirsty region more than 
ankle deep at any season of the year; and 
lastly, when " J ohn was baptizing in Enon 
near to Salim, because there was much water 
there," we may remark that the "ttoWcc vSara" 
means " many wells," there being no other sup- 
ply in the neighbourhood, which seems again 
conclusive. Every body who ever read a Greek 
grammar knows that the prepositions ets and 
ev mean unto and by, among other significa- 
tions ; so that such texts as " went down into 
the water," or "was baptized in w T ater," might 
be as safely rendered "went down unto the 

water," or " was sprinkled by water." "So 

shall he sprinkle many nations," (Isaiah lii. 15,) 
where the Hebrew nazali might perhaps be 
considered as indirectly applicable to the water 
of Baptism^ though immediately referring to 
the blood of Redemption. It must, however, 
be allowed that the icord baptism favours im- 
mersion, rather than affusion, and so our Church 
has adjudged by her rubric. The old pictures 
represent John the Baptist pouring water from 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



387 



Ms hand upon the head of Christ, both stand- 
ing in the stream ; and this might very proba- 
bly have been the mode in use among the Jews 
before the institution of the Christian Sacra- 
ment of Regeneration ** 

The Lower Pool of Gihom into w T hich we 
were looking, is now partly ruinous, and pro- 
bably contains no great quantity of water even 
in winter ; at present it is perfectly dry and 
heaped with rubbish. The walls are of the 
smooth large stones peculiar to a very early 
period ; the northern lies nearly in a line with 
the southern rampart of the city, no longer 

* No clergyman of the Church of England would or 
could refuse immersion to an infant ; and in the case of 
an adult could allege nothing but the inconvenience against 
it. It would seem that the Baptists have less cause for 
dissent than any other sect of nonconformists, which per- 
haps accounts for their reputed bitterness. It must be 
allowed, however, that the Church system of sponsorship 
has no hold upon the people, and works ill throughout. 
The well-meant refusal to receive the natural parents as 
spiritual sureties at the font, is an innovation upon primi- 
tive practice (see Bingham), and its wisdom not justified 
by the result. It was intended, doubtless, to secure an 
additional guarantee. The writer believes that among the 
religious and conscientious of humble rank, this godfather 
obligation is the great stumbling-block in the path of 
churehmanship. 

2 C 2 



388 



NOZRANI IN 



including the summit of the liill of Zion, which 
is now occupied by a mosque sacred to David, 
and by Christian cemeteries, Latin, Greek, Ar- 
menian, and American, There is a story cur- 
rent about the Mohammadan engineer who last 
repaired the walls in the sixteenth century, 
haying lost his head for leaving the holy hill 
of David outside the precincts. 

Continuing our walk along Solomon's aque- 
duct, we turn to the east through the valley of 
Hinnom, the terrible Ge-Hinnom or Gehenna 
of Scripture, accursed by idolatrous immolation 
of human victims to the fire of Moloch, and 
afterwards supposed to have been constantly 
defiled by the burning of the city offal at the 
hands of malefactors ; hence affording the dread- 
ful image of " everlasting* fire for the workers 

* The Hebrew and Greek expressions, eis rovs aicovas, 
and dor wader, which we render by everlasting, are terms 
significant of indefinite duration, as for example i( the ever- 
lasting hills," though we learn that the earth itself shall 
melt with fervent heat, and the heavens be rolled together 
as a scroll. The Church of England leaves the doctrinal 
question open. If a man really believed that the human 
race were even to be hereafter only decimated for endless 
agony, it would surely paralyze every faculty within him. 
As far as terrific images tend to deter from sin, they may 
be defended, but are not to be maintained as literal reali- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



389 



of iniquity/' the thought of which so often 
terrifies, though it so little deters us from the 
commission of sins whose wages is death. The 
valley is gloomy, rugged, precipitous, and full 
of cavernous tombs cut in the rock, with here 
and there a few funeral cypresses and silvery- 
grey olive trees. Many of the sepulchres con- 
sist of several chambers hewn in the face of the 
limestone cliff, where the bodies of the dead 
were apparently laid either upon the ground 
or on shelves in the rock, and the entry blocked 
up. Mid-way up "the hill of evil counsel," 
looking down upon Gehenna, is the awful 
space pointed out by the trembling finger of 
tradition as the Aceldama, or " Field of Blood." 
" The chief priest took the silver pieces and 
said, It is not lawful for to put them into the 
treasury, because it is the price of blood. And 

ties, when closely examined, as they now generally are and 
will be. The one thing truly everlasting is the mercy of 
that . Being whose nature "is Love," who " declares His 
Almighty power most chiefly by showing mercy and com- 
passion," — whose "mercy is over all His works," and 
whose " mercy endureth for ever." The ponderous old 
word damnation, now conveying a sense never intended, 
should be replaced in our Prayer-Book by condemnation or 
judgment, the right rendering of Kpiais. 



390 



kozrani m 



they took counsel and bought with them the 
potter's fields to bury strangers in. Wherefore 
that field was called The Field of Blood, unto 
this day." (Matt, xxvii. 6.) The huge horrid 
charnel-house, sunk deep into the hill, with its 
massive walls and arches, stands as a grim me- 
morial of sin in this gloomy glen of death. God 
forbid that the stranger's bones should now rest 
in this unhallowed pit ! Let the memory of 
them be honoured who have assured a resting- 
place to the dying Christian stranger on the 
holy height of Zion. I looked down into the 
ghastly hole and could distinguish mouldering 
bones upon the earth ; but it is no longer used 
for the burial of the dead. 

It seems strange that the im aginative and de- 
vout crusaders should have chosen this ground 
for the burial of Christian pilgrims, but that 
they did so, we have ample evidence ; and, more- 
over, exported some ship-loads of its earth for 
the soil of the Campo Santo at Pisa. " Here," 
says Mandeville, "ben many Christene pil- 
grymes graven." Descending the rapid steep 
of this ill-omened mount, we find ourselves in 
the dry rocky channel of the brook Cedron, 
or more correctly Kedron, which in winter is 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



391 



an occasional mountain torrent rushing to the 
Dead Sea. Turning northward up its stone 
bed, along the boundary line of the ancient 
city, on the now unenclosed Zion, we come to 
the pool or fountain of Siloam, whither we read 
that our Lord directed the " man which was 
blind from his birth/' saying, u Go wash in the 
pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, 
sent)" No other mention of this fountain 
occurs in Scripture, except in Isaiah and 
Nehemiah. The evangelic prophet gives the 
word of the Lord, describing the waters of 
Shiloah as u going softly." Moreover, the 
invocation of the blind bard of our own land 
to the heavenly muse of Horeb or of Sinai, 
rises to the memory not uninvested with the 
halo of inspiration, as he thence invokes her 
aid to his "adventurous song" — from Sion's 
hill, and 

e; Siloa's brook that flowed 

Fast by the oracle of God." 

Here we find water trickling from the rock 
into an ancient stone trough, over which are 
the ruins of a chapel ; and upon the fragment 
of an old column I sat down to read the ninth 
chapter of St. John, amidst the scenery of the 



NOZBANI Iff 



miracle, marvelling once more not so much at 
the rigid and searching scrutiny to which the 
narrative of him that was born blind is sub- 
jected, as at his steady, consistent, and tri- 
umphant endurance of the ordeal. " Whether 
He be a sinner or no, I know not : one thing 
I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."' 
The defenceless, despised, and reviled outcast, 
strong in the integrity of his purpose and the 
truth of his cause, baffles thrice and again 
the proud, powerful, and revengeful league of 
Pharisees and rulers, " taking counsel together 
against the Loid and His anointed." Philo- 
sophers, reasoners, and sceptics, backed by the 
i: Jews who did not believe concerning him that 
he had been born blind," driven to desperation 
by the plain, unvarnished tale of a nameless 
beggar, have no resource but to throw off the 
smooth mask of hypocritic piety, " give God the 
praise," and show themselves under their real 
aspect of brutal, self-blown bigotry, — " Thou 
wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach 
us? And they cast him out." Xo wonder! the 
disciple is not greater than his master : enough 
for the disciple that he be as his master : they 
cast out him who bare witness to the Truth, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



393 



and were soon about to cast out Him in whom 
Truth was embodied and personified. " When 
the husbandmen of the vineyard saw the Son, 
they said, This is the heir ; and they caught 
him, cast him out, and slew him." And do we 
not all, armed with pride, passion, and preju- 
dice, cast out the Truth, and is not this the 
reason why Truth is at the bottom of a well ? 
Do we not all seek without caring to find, and, 
like Pilate, ask without waiting to learn, "What 
is truth?" Though why Lord Bacon should 
think that Pilate scoffed, is not very evident*. 



* An anonymous but friendly correspondent differs with 
the author as to the non-evidence of Lord Bacon's reason 
in this matter; he may be, and perhaps is, the clearer- 
sighted of the two, in the question at issue ; it does not, 
however, seem that Pilate scoffed, because in the first place 
it is not so set down in the narrative, and the Roman 
governor appears to have been of no jesting character in 
general, and in no scoffing mood at that time in particular. 
a Behold I find no fault in Him," are not the words of 
one scoffing : his " taking water and washing his hands be- 
fore the multitude," is not the action of one scoffing : and 
then hear his protest after so doing : " I am innocent of 
the blood of this just person ; see ye to it." His wife's 
warning, though a dream, was no matter of scoffing in those 
days. Scoffing, not jesting, (as erroneously quoted in the 
first edition,) is Lord Bacon's expression in the Essay on 
Truth. 



394 



NOZRANI IN 



These reflections, and such as these, multi- 
plied and extended, however trite they may 
appear in print, have the charm of vivid fresh- 
ness when called up by the presence of the 
very hills and rocks that witnessed the noble 
works which from childhood we have heard 
with our ears, and which our fathers have de- 
clared unto us as done, not in their days, but 
in the old time before them. It is to strengthen 
and realize religious impressions that we travel 
to the Holy Land, holy only in as far as it pro- 
motes the cause of holiness in our own minds. 
If we wander hither in any other spirit than 
that of the Biblical pilgrim, we wander in vain; 
we shall return discontented and disappointed, 
without pleasure and without profit. Other 
lands nearer home offer, perhaps, higher ele- 
ments of grandeur and beauty than the land 
of Palestine; but to the Christian, who be- 
lieves that upon this soil was worked out the 
wondrous scheme of his Redemption, accord- 
ing to the inscrutable will and way of God to 
man, to him this obscure Asiatic nook is en- 
circled with a halo that dims all other earthly 
light. In this spirit, then, of faith in our means 
of grace, and rest in our hope of glory, we 



EGYPT AND SYBIA. 



395 



make our circuit round the walls of Jerusalem 
— those walls and palaces from which peace and 
plenteousness have long since fled, even since 
the days when her children might have been 
gathered together under the shadow of their 
King, as a brood under the wings of a bird, 
and they would not. 

Fjrom the pool of Siloam, a subterranean con- 
duit, nearly a quarter of a mile long, leads up 
the valley to another fountain, now known as 
that of the Virgin Mary. This tunnel is cut 
in the solid rock, and must have been a work 
of immense labour, probably intended to secure 
a supply of water by a channel inaccessible to 
an enemy; its height diminishes from eight or 
ten feet at the Siloam entrance till one has to 
crawl and creep upon all fours. Dr. Robinson 
passed through it, but I found it partially 
blocked up, and felt no wish, at this dog-clay 
season, to grope so far in the dark and damp. 
The learned American traveller was also for- 
tunate enough to witness the ebb and flow of 
the waters of Siloam; a fact often mentioned 
by early authors, but for the last few centuries 
Overlooked or unnoticed. Dr. Robinson believes 
the pool of Siloam to be identical with that of 



396 



NOZRAHI tJS( 



Bethesda, near the Slieep Gate (John v. 2) ; 
it was anciently just within the city walls, and 
from its position, at the south-east angle near 
the king's gardens, there must have been a gate 
close by. A few sheep, with their shepherd, 
were lying under the rocks round the stone 
cistern as I was reading the chapter, probably 
on the site of the "five porches" — "In these 
lay a multitude of impotent folk, of blind, 
halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the 
water, for an angel went down at a certain 
season and troubled the water ; whosoever then 
first, after the troubling of the water, stepped 
in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he 
had." As the cure is so expressly limited to 
one person who steps in, it becomes a question 
whether the law of defilement was not involved ; 
it would, at least under ordinary circumstances, 
have been unclean for a second invalid to enter 
the water immediately after the ablution of the 
first. The poor impotent man, who had long 
waited in vain, was always anticipated by an- 
other stepping down before him : " J esus saith 
unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk." 
Again it was the Sabbath, and again were the 
Jews offended that the Lord of the Sabbath- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



397 



day should choose it for a work of mercy — 
"They sought to slay Him, because He had 
done these things on the Sabbath day*." 

Oriental manners are now so familiar even 
to children, that it is hardly worth remarking 
that the bed is a light mattress or mat, easily 
rolled up and carried from place to place by 
its owner; but even this light burden was 
judged an unlawful task on the Sabbath, by 
those who had made "new moons and Sab- 
baths " an abomination to the Lord in their 
neglect of the Cf weightier matters of the Law, 
Judgment, Mercy, and Faith." 



* Our church reading of the fourth commandment as in- 
cumbent upon a Christian congregation, according to Judaic 
observance, is an unaccountable and very mischievous over- 
sight by the compilers of the Liturgy. "What are the 
people to think of the solemn petition, 6C Incline our hearts 
to keep this law," when perhaps a bishop himself may 
have driven to the church door in a carriage and pair, with 
a coachman before, and a footman behind ? It is very easy 
to say that these things are of no consequence, or are soon 
explained; they may be simple and satisfactory enough to 
theological students, but are neither one nor the other to 
millions of people who neither like nor understand incon- 
sistencies and contradictions. It is becoming high time to 
ask why half the Protestant population of the empire are at 
open variance with the Established Church. 



398 



KOZRANI IN 



The origin of the name Siloam, "sent" or 
brought, is probably to be found in the circum- 
stance of the water being conducted hither by 
the aqueduct from the upper fountain, a work 
no doubt of very remote antiquity. A strag- 
gling ruined village in the valley, scarcely to 
be distinguished from the rocks around, still 
goes by the Arabic name of Silwon. Pursu- 
ing our way up the dry bed of the Kedron, 
we come to the steep ravine separating the 
Mount of Olives from the heights of Moriah, 
up whose rocky steep we climb till we reach 
the long and narrow line of the Mohamma- 
dan cemetery that skirts the ancient walls of 
the Temple of Solomon, the prodigious lower 
courses of which are now by common consent 
acknowledged to exist in these very blocks 
upon which we look and lay our hands : " As 
He went out of the Temple, one of his dis- 
ciples saith unto Him, Master, see what manner 
of stones and what buildings are here ! J esus 
answering, saith, Seest thou these great build- 
ings? there shall not be left one stone upon 
another, that shall not be thrown down." (Mark 
xiii. 1.) The destruction of the great build- 
ings has been indeed sufficient to fulfil the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 399 

prediction even to the letter. Forty years 
had scarcely elapsed from the utterance of the 
words, before all the means and appliances of 
human power were at work under the Roman 
standard to accomplish the prophecy. — The 
days had come upon the devoted city that her 
enemies should cast a trench about her, and 
compass her round, and keep her in on every 
side, and should lay her even with the ground, 
and her children within her, and should not 
leave in her one stone upon another, because 
she knew not the time of her visitation. (Luke 
xix. 43.) 

Of all the awful records of havoc and slaugh- 
ter that ever thrilled through the heart, that 
of the Jewish historian Josephus, relating the 
fate of the city of his fathers, is the most un- 
paralleled in horror, to be matched only in the 
withering curse on the rebellious and stiff- 
necked people, foreseen and denounced by the 
piercing spirit of the law-giver of Sinai — u The 
Lord shall bring a nation against thee from 
afar, swift as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose 
tongue thou shalt not understand, a nation of 

fierce countenance, who shall besiege thee 

in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls 



400 



stozrani ns- 



come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout 
all thy land." (Deut. xxviii. 49.) Let any one 
that will, read to the end of this malediction 
upon the people who invoked the blood of 
their King upon themselves and their children, 
and then compare the prediction of Moses with 
its fulfilment in the narrative of Josephus — 
the history of the siege of Jerusalem, when 
the Roman standards gathered around her as 
eagles to the slaughter, — when Titus dug the 
trench and built the wall to keep her in on 
every side, and a million of her children within 
her; for it was the feast, and " thither the tribes 
had gone up unto the testimony of Israel."" 
Every circumstance of suffering, so fearfully 
detailed in the prediction, is as frightfully re- 
corded in the annals of that unequalled siege, 
where eleven hundred thousand lives are said 
to have been destroyed by the triple league of 
fire and sword and pestilence against the guilty 
city, to whose daughters Jesus had within 
their memory turned and said, "Weep not 
for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your 
children." 

Let us return to these great stones of the 
wall at which we were looking. There is no 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 401 

room to doubt of their being actually part of 
the original structure of King Solomon, a thou- 
sand years before the coming of Christ ; at no 
other, or at least no period more recent than 
that of the wise monarch, was such masonry 
ever achieved; at his death the strength of 
Israel and Judah was broken and divided, the 
captivity soon followed, and on the return of 
the shattered tribes who rebuilt the house of 
the Lord, " many of the priests and Levites 
and ancient men that had seen the first house, 
when the foundation of this house was laid 
before their eyes, wept with a loud voice." 
(Ezra iii. 12.) These were not the men to lay 
such prodigious masses as those before us: 
" Who is left among you," exclaims the pro- 
phet Haggai, B.C. 500, "that saw this house 
in her first glory ? and how do ye see it now ? 
is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as 
nothing?" Still less could such building have 
been accomplished, or attempted, under the 
troublous, perilous, and short-lived auspices of 
the Persian, the Macedonian, the Syrian, or 
the Maccabee. The Romans (and Herod was 
one by adoption) we know were architects of 
a different stamp. Solomon, and Solomon alone, 

2 D 



402 



NOZRANI IN 



was the king to hew from their quarry, bring 
to their place, and pile in their order, these 
monstrous blocks, some of which are from 
twenty to thirty feet in length by six in depth 
and breadth. The prophetic words of our Lord, 
even in their literal sense, do not militate against 
this conviction. The Temple is indeed gone ; 
not one stone "of those great buildings" re- 
mained upon the other at the close of the gene- 
ration that witnessed the crucifixion. But the 
wall whose lower courses still partially exist, 
was altogether exterior to the House ; and the 
expression, " one stone upon another," is more- 
over proverbial for destruction, and not to be 
pushed to the interpretation of the letter, more 
than any other similar form, the spirit of 
which alone is vital. The largest blocks are 
seen principally towards the south-east corner 
of the Temple area, sometimes in double, some- 
times in triple tier; their surfaces hewn smooth, 
with a cut-away edge half an inch deep round 
the four sides, clearly marking the magnitude 
and division of each stone at a considerable dis- 
tance. The upper structure of this wall is of 
a very different nature, consisting of materials 
gathered from various quarters and rudely piled 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



403 



together, some ancient, some modern, with 
occasional large fragments of precious marble, 
broken shafts, and mutilated sculpture, capped 
with a turreted battlement. 

Continuing our walk under the walls among 
the turbaned tombs of the Mooslim, at this 
season strongly redolent of fermenting morta- 
lity, we arrive at the blocked-up gate of Ro- 
man architecture, called by the crusaders " the 
Golden," and with which are connected various 
mediaeval legends ; among others, that through 
it the Messiah at his second coming will enter 
the city, to establish the kingdom of the New 
Jerusalem., after judging the nations of the earth 
in the valley of Jehoshaphat : "Let the heathen 
be wakened and come up to the valley of Je- 
hoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the 
heathen round about." (Joel iii. 12.) The Mo- 
hammadans have also appropriated and inter- 
preted in their own way this text, and the 
second verse of the same chapter, by assigning 
to their prophet a broken column projecting 
from the south-eastern wall as the seat from 
which he is to pass in review "all nations, 
bringing them down into the valley of J ehosha- 
phat." One feels reluctant to quote the words 

2 d 2 



404 



NOZRANI IN 



of Scripture in connection with such fatras, but 
it may pass as a characteristic sample of the 
adaptation of the Old Testament to the system 
of the Koran. Popular tradition, alike among 
J ews, Christians, and Mohammadans, points to 
this valley of Jehoshaphat as the dread scene 
of the future Judgment, — no doubt from a lite- 
ral interpretation of the above texts from the 
prophet J oel, who probably speaks of the valley 
of Jehoshaphat in allusion to the signification 
of the word, " God's Judgment," rather than 
with any intention of assigning a local habi- 
tation to so sublime a name. 

About two hundred yards north from the 
built-up " Gate of Gold," we arrive at that which 
is now known among Christians as the Gate of 
St. Stephen, the lion-sculptured architecture of 
w r hich is probably to be referred to the cru- 
saders, as the Mohammadans abhor all graven 
images of life. From this entrance of the city, 
a steep rocky path winds down to the dry chan- 
nel of the Kedron, and thence by the walled 
olive-shaded garden, hallowed by the sacred 
name of Gethsemane, along the southern flank 
of the Mount of Olives, to the village of Beth- 
any, about a mile and a half distant. The 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



405 



remainder of the walk is round the northern 
district of the city, on the hill of Bezetha, 
now almost deserted of inhabitants, being little 
more than an arid open space, with a few vines 
and olives interspersed. The Biblical interest 
is here comparatively faint. Passing the two 
gates of Herod and Damascus, through stony 
solitude, far within the supposed trace of the 
ancient fortifications, we again arrive at the 
salient angle occupied by the Latin convent, 
and re-enter the city by the Bethlehem arch, 
from which we issued. The circuit of the actual 
walls is perhaps somewhat less than three miles, 
while the old works, including Zion to the 
south and a broad belt beyond the rugged Be- 
zetha to the north, must have been at least a 
mile and a half more. The absence of all stir- 
ring life in close vicinity to the city is very 
striking. "With the exception of a few Turkish- 
soldiers lounging at the gates, a shepherd with 
his sheep in the valley of the Keclron, a woman, 
with her water-pitcher at the pool of Siloanv 
and a party of mounted Bedouin on the ridge 
of the Mount of Olives, I scarcely saw a 
human being in a Ions: morning's ramble round 
the walls of Jerusalem, many times repeated^ 



406 



NOZRANI IN 



and always with deepening interest, during the 
fortnight that I sojourned within her sacred 
lines. 

JERUSALEM AS IT NOW IS. 

Very few pages may suffice for Jerusalem as 
a living city, the capital of a third-rate pashalic. 
The population is estimated by Di\ Robinson 
at between eleven and twelve thousand souls, 
of whom perhaps five thousand are Moham- 
madans, and the rest divided equally between 
Jews and Christians. The four convents or 
monasteries — Roman, Greek, Armenian, and 
Coptic — are central rallying points for the 
members of the various communions. The 
Latin Christians amount to more than a thou- 
sand, principally native Arabs ; the Greeks are 
nearly twice as numerous, and also natives of 
Syria; the Armenians, on the contrary, princi- 
pally foreigners of some wealth and respecta- 
bility, but few in number, have their convent 
and church of St. James on a more splendid 
scale than any of the others. The Coptic 
church is represented only by the monks of 
their inconsiderable convent, situate, like the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



407 



Latin and Greeks close to the shrine of the 
Holy Sepulchre, where all the four commu- 
nions have their chapels and burning lamps. 
France is still considered, as she always has 
been, a nursing mother to the Latins ; and the 
portrait of Louis Philippe, Koi des Franyais, 
is as much honoured in the monastery as if he 
had been Sa Majeste tres-Chretienne, Roi de 
France. Russia of course protects the Greek ; 
but the Armenian and Copt are not under the 
wing of any European power. 

The Jews of Jerusalem are chiefly those 
who come from all nations of the world to lay 
their bones in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the 
shadow of Zion, to await the day when 6S there 
shall be no more destruction ; " they appear to 
the last degree withered, wretched, and squalid; 
probably the more so, to avoid the exactions to 
which their unhappy race has been always sub- 
jected*. In an obscure nook near the south- 

* The policy of sending a gentleman of Jewish lineage 
to Jerusalem, as Anglican Bishop, was at least very ques- 
tionable, or rather not questionable at all, but unquestion- 
ably a blunder. The representative of the English Church 
should have been a thoroughbred Englishman, the more 
aristocratic in blood the better. 

It is utterly at variance with the wisdom of the serpent 



405 



HOZEAKI IN 



west corner of the temple area, they have the 
privilege of purchasing permission to mourn 
over the desolation of Israel: there "they sit 
down and weep when they remember thee, O 
Zion." 

The political condition of the Holy City is 
that of the chief town of a poor Turkish pro- 
vince, governed by a resident basha, in com- 
mand of a garrison scarcelv sufficient to secure 
the rates against a Bedouin inroad. During 
the sway of Mohammad Ali and the military 
occupation of Ibraheera, there was a nearer 
approach to peace and security than Syria had 
known for centuries : but now there is likely 
to be wild work again under the lax discipline 
of the Sublime Porte, whose magnificent pre- 
tensions and imbecile performances are much 
upon a par with those of the Brother of the 



to neglect secular ways and means for the promotion of 
the Gospel. We see this acknowledged by all parties in 
the instance of money; then why not for rank, talent, 
knowledge, and all other resources of civilization ? In the 
absence of miracles, these are the means appointed, means 
no less divine than the other. Let the nation send ont an 
accredited missionary expedition in a frigate, and it will 
arrive nnder far better anspices of success than when 
turned out anyhow from some tub of a trader. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



409 



Sun and Moon in the celestial empire. The 
commerce of such an isolated hill-fortress, with 
no navigable river or practicable sea-port, is, of 
course, at zero. The influx of pilgrims during 
the holy week of Easter gives activity to a little 
manufacture of beads and crosses from the trees 
of the Mount of Olives, rudely cut with a knife 
by the Arab Christians ; but beyond these and 
similar memorials there is no export of any kind. 
The population of the surrounding country has 
been so drained by continual warfare and op- 
pression, that its resources are hardly adequate 
to the supply of the city with the necessaries of 
life. The Bazaar, as they call it, is miserably 
furnished ; the little stalls in the narrow, shed- 
sheltered lanes offering nothing but a shabby 
show of cotton stuff, lean mutton, scarce vege- 
tables, good grapes, bad tobacco, and poisonous 
opium. 

With respect to climate, the elevation of the 
city on a rocky region nearly three thousand 
feet above the Mediterranean, secures it from 
extreme heat ; the air is dry, pure, and bracing, 
even in these dog-days, the thermometer sel- 
dom rising above 85° Fahrenheit in the shade. 
The rainy or wintry season, they tell me, usu- 



410 



NOZRAKI IN 



ally begins in November and lasts till March ; 
frost and snow are not unknown, but compa- 
ratively rare. From April to October the wea- 
ther is always bright and calm, except during 
the Khamseen or Sirocco, which, as in Egypt, 
is dreadfully oppressive and laden with clouds 
of dust and sand ; it follows of course that the 
right season for travelling is in the spring, 
when the face of the country is dry and the 
sky serene, without the one being parched and 
the other sultry. 

The streets of modern J erusalem are narrow, 
heavy, and gloomy ; the pavement, apparently 
never relaid since the days of the Romans, rug- 
ged, sharp, and steep, to a degree that would 
flounder any horse but a Syrian, to whom a 
broken stone staircase seems as safe as a Mac- 
adamized road. The senses, however, are not 
more offended by disagreeable impressions in 
these rough thoroughfares than in those of the 
proudest capital of Europe, though the virtue of 
cleanliness may perhaps be rather negative than 
positive, owing to the absence of the toiling 
and grimy population with which other towns 
of equal circumference are usually thronged. 
Under Turkish rule, no one ever dreams of 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



411 



finding regulations and appliances for the con- 
venience or safety of the Public, with us so 
mighty and imperious a potentate ; no drilled 
police, no lamp-posts or penny-posts, no water 
pipes, no names of streets, no numbered houses, 
no trottoir for pedestrians, no drains or sewers, 
no scavengers but dogs and jackals, no coaches 
or carriers' carts; every body is expected to 
provide for himself, and the governors take 
special care to set the example, by employing 
their power in nothing but screwing taxes, and 
consulting only their pleasure in spending 
them. 

There are as yet no regular inns established 
for the reception of strangers in Jerusalem. 
The convents have been hitherto the resource 
of all Christian travellers : to the poor pilgrim 
they afford a few days' food and shelter gra- 
tuitously ; those who can afford to pay, are of 
course expected to leave the full value of their 
entertainment ; but nothing is ever demanded. 
The funds of these religious houses are re- 
cruited by annual contributions from the various 
nations of Europe. A little cunning-looking 
Maltese Jew, who acts as my servant, talks of 
setting up an inn for the accommodation of 



412 



NOZRANI IN 



Franks ; and perhaps before this there may be 
a flaring " Hotel cT Angleterre " painted in let- 
ters a foot long on the wall of his house in the 
Via Dolorosa! How such an association of 
ideas shocks the imagination with a painful im- 
pression one cannot analyse — what antagonism 
there is between sublimity and vulgarity in the 
mind of man — what a conflict between the soar- 
ing and grovelling elements of his nature, fur- 
nished with wings on which he would fain rise 
from the earth, and yet tethered by a string 
which brings him so soon fluttering down again ! 
However, the string will be one day severed, 
and the wings spread for a high and distant 
flight — the " silver cord will be loosed " — the 
dust will return to the earth as it was — and 
through Him who for our sakes bore His cross 
within these walls, we trust that the uncum- 
bered " spirit may return to God who gave it." 

The native Arab Christians do not seem dis- 
tinguished from the Mooslim by anv marked 
difference of dress or custom or conduct. If a 
very short acquaintance, and very limited means 
of knowing, would justify an opinion, I should 
not form a high estimate of their standard, 
either of faith or works; but alas! of how 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



413 



many millions among ourselves might not a 
passing stranger make the same remark ! 

One seldom meets women in the streets, and 
the few that are visible shuffle about in slippers, 
veiled and wrapped as in Egypt. Their long, 
thick, black hair, twisted Syrian fashion into 
tresses, to which are attached small gold coins, 
makes a brilliant show, jingling and glancing 
with every movement of the head. One's only 
chance of seeing them is on the roof-tops, where 
they come out at sunset in a family party to 
breathe the cool air, and I was occasionally 
and almost unavoidably guilty of this peeping 
impertinence, from the favourite perch of an 
old ruinous minaret commanding a wide view 
within and without the city *. 



* As far as I could learn from hearsay, a Mohammadan 
is not authorized to add a second wife to his establishment 
if the first have borne him children; though it is easy 
enough to effect a change by divorce. Polygamy is such a 
monstrous and unnatural evil that one is puzzled to account 
for its legal sanction anywhere. Lamech is the first biga- 
mist on record, and this explains the passage in Genesis, 
so utterly incomprehensible through our version. Let us 
try another: " And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and 
Zillah, Hear my voice ; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto 
my speech. Have I, forsooth, slain a man that I should 



414 



nozrani m 



A very interesting walk within tlie walls is 
to the south-west corner of the Temple area, 
crossing the valley of the Tyropoeon, through 
a deserted ground overgrown with the prickly 
pear. Here are seen not only the largest masses 
of the original foundations^ but, projecting from 
the surface, the very stones that began the 
spring of the arch of the very bridge described 
by Josephus as connecting Moriah with Zion 8 
Dr. Robinson appears to pride himself more 
upon this discovery than upon any other re- 
sult of his visit to J erusalem ; for, though the 
stones must have been observed by every one, 
nobody referred them to their true origin, as 

be put to the sword; or even a child that I should be 
scourged ? (No : though I have taken to myself two wives; 
rest assured, therefore,) if anybody killing Cain was to 
suffer seven-fold, any one killing Lamech would suffer 
seventy and seven." (Gen. iv. 23.) 

This translation is literal, and the parenthetic filling up 
not extraordinary to any one accustomed to the Hebraic 
style. The interrogation is quite allowable : the old Hebrew 
rolls are written without point, mark, or division of any 
kind; all of which, therefore, are guaranteed by later 
authority only, hence the fierce controversy of Buxtorfians 
and Capellarians, supported respectively by Protestants 
and Romanists in the seventeenth century, for and against 
the Divine authority of orally-determined points, now de- 
cided against them, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



415 



he seems to have done beyond any reasonable 
doubt. The longest of the stones measures 
about twenty-five feet; the whole breadth of 
the arch is seventeen yards; and the length 
of the bridge about one hundred and twenty, 
supposing always that it ended at the opposite 
rock, which seems its natural termination and 
support. The ground has of course greatly 
accumulated over the interval between the two 
heights, and no vestiges of either arch or pier 
remain except those now mentioned, which we 
may confidently ascribe to the sera of Solomon. 
"The traces of this arch are too distinct and 
definite to be mistaken. The part of the curve 
or arc which remains is of course but a frag- 
ment ; but of this fragment the chord measures 
twelve feet six inches." (Robinson's Biblical 
Researches.} 

The rise of the soil in the neighbourhood of 
the Temple must necessarily be very great, after 
the lapse of so many centuries, and the succes- 
sive ruin of such stupendous structures, which 
renders it probable that several strata of stones 
lower than those now visible may yet be deeply 
embedded; and as the lower are usually the 
larger, we may expect future excavations to 



416 



NOZRANI IN 



bring to light a style of masonry equal to that 
of Balbek, bearing out Josephus in his ac- 
count of monoliths sixty and seventy feet in 
length. 

Immediately to the north is the wailing place 
of the poor Jews, who crawl by stealth to this 
solitary corner to sit down and weep. As for 
their harps, they have been long hanged up, 
and there is neither song nor melody in their 
heaviness. They live in a quarter specially 
assigned to them in this neighbourhood, and 
their district, as usual, is distinguished for its 
nastiness. They are said to be still subject to 
leprosy, which renders them liable to rigorous 
seclusion. 

THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 

I have felt anxious all along to steer clear 
of the monkish legends, with their unavoidable 
associations of incredulity. They have, it is 
said, a place in the city ready found for every 
scriptural name, scene, and circumstance, whe- 
ther real or supposed, historical or figurative. 
Listening to so many tales, palpably absurd, 
promotes a feeling diametrically opposed to 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



417 



that spirit of faith and hope which one conies 
here to foster and strengthen; so I wander 
about alone, caring little for any but those 
grand and incorruptible witnesses, which bear 
their own testimony, to that they have seen 
and heard, — the unchanging mountains, val- 
leys, and rocks of Jerusalem, whose very 
" stones cry out" to the ears of the pilgrim 
when "others hold their peace." Yet there 
is one shrine made with hands that we would 
fain approach in a spirit of reverential belief 
— the Sepulchre where they laid the Lord. 
"Now in the place where He was crucified 
there was a garden, and in the garden a new 
sepulchre, wherein was never man laid ; there 
laid they J esus therefore, because of the Jews' 
preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at 
hand." All Christendom knows and acknow- 
ledges that, for fifteen hundred years, a church 
dedicated to the worship of the Triune God 
has reared its lofty dome over the cavern to 
which we now descend, as to that whence the 
angel rolled the stone, telling Mary Magda- 
lene and the other Mary, "He is not here, 
for He is risen as He said ; but come, see the 
place where the Lord lay." 

2 E 



418 



NOZRANI IN 



The church we now enter was originally 
raised by Helena, the mother of Constantine, 
or by the emperor himself after his conversion 
to the Faith; and Eusebius, his secretary, and 
ecclesiastical historian of the three first centu- 
ries, bears testimony to the recent Invention or 
finding of the true cross, which became soon 
afterwards the nucleus of numberless legends 
and superstitions, beginning with the miracu- 
lous mode of distinguishing the One among 
the three found; for Pilate's tablet of super- 
scription was discovered at a distance which 
gave no clue to the truth. The church then 
built has been again and again laid waste by 
war and conflagration ; but this ruin of the su- 
perstructure would not affect the subterranean 
cavern of the sacred tomb, expressly called 
avrpov by the early writers ; so that the only 
question that now arises, appears to be whether 
the Emperor Constantine, three hundred years 
after the crucifixion, had or had not the power 
of ascertaining the site of the Lord's sepulchre. 
One would assuredly expect nine answers out 
of ten to be in the affirmative. Scarcely had 
the Redeemer risen from his tomb when we 
hear of three thousand converts to the Gospel 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



419 



in one day, in the city of Jerusalem alone ; and 
thirty years had not elapsed before we find the 
Apostle Paul, writing to the Christian church 
in the imperial capital, " thanking God through 
J esus Christ for them all, that their faith was 
spoken of throughout the whole world*." The 
seed of mustard had fallen upon good ground, 
and was already become a wide-spreading tree, 
with branches overshadowing the earth: how 
then can we suppose that piety and love and 
reverence should have been so cold in the heart 
or imagination of these earlier worshippers, as 
to leave them indifferent to the hallowed asso- 
ciations connected with the place where " the 
Lord had lain ?" True, they were driven from 
the death-devoted city, over which the vials of 
wrath were poured by seven angels of destruc- 
tion ; but yet they returned to it again, and 
fifty years had not rolled over their heads before 
the lordly walls of the -ZElia Capitolina rose 
upon the foundations of the bulwarks levelled 
by Titus. Thousands of Christians must have 
dwelt within them and helped to rear them — 
a generation had not passed away since they 



* Romans i. 8. 

2 e 2 



420 



KOZBAKI IN 



or their fathers had been familiar with every 
local scene of their Master's ministry — how 
then should they be forgetful or unmindful of 
the site of that sepulchre known and marked 
by men and angels and the spirit of prophecy 
as the tomb in which He was with the rich 
man* in his deaths who in his life had not 
where to lay his head. 

If the site of Calvary was known to the 
Christians of Jerusalem before the siege, it 
could not have been forgotten on their return 
from Pella, whither they had fled for their lives 
in obedience to the Lord^s warning f. We 
have, moreover, the direct assertion of Euse- 
bius, that the Sepulchre was so well marked 
before his time, that the heathens had delibe- 
rately, for its desecration, raised over it a 
temple dedicated to the worship of the Erotic 
Venus, and this abomination, among others, 
is expressly attributed by the Latin father Je- 
rome to the Emperor Hadrian, who founded 
his new city of iElia upon the ruins of that of 
David, A.D. 130. Jerome wrote a.d. 380, and 



* Rich man : singular in the Hebrew. (Isaiah liii. 9.) 
t Matthew xxiv. 16. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



421 



spent the latter part of his life in the convent 
of Bethlehem, where he was in a position to 
know as well as any one the true history of 
the stupendous events of which the neighbour- 
hood had been so recently the theatre*. From 
the reign of Hadrian to that of Constantine, 
A.D. 320, the spread of Christianity was steady, 
rapid, and uninterrupted; for the blood of 
martyrs only made the flames of zeal burn 
higher and brighter, till the whole civilized 
world, in the person of the imperial Augustus, 
bowed the knee at the name of Jesus of Na- 
zareth. 

But why take the trouble to argue that Gol- 
gotha was known in the first and second, there- 
fore in the third and fourth, and therefore in 
every succeeding century down to the present 
day? — Why should unbroken tradition as to 



* At Bethlehem Jerome studied Hebrew, and acquired 
what was then a very unusual knowledge of the language, 
for a Christian — but it is amusing to find how he deplores 
the injury to his elegant Latinity, from the uncouth idiom 
and guttural tones of the barbarous dialect. "Loquarl: 
sed omnis sermonis elegantiam, et Latini eloquii venusta- 
tern stridor lectionis Hebraic^e sordidavit. . . . Obsecro te ? . 
lector . . . ne requiras eloquii venustatem, quam multcr 
tempore Hebrese linguae studio perdidi." 



422 



NOZRANI IN 



a natural matter of fact be called in question 
with so little apparent reason ? The answer is, 
that there does appear a strong reason against 
the supposed identity of the sepulchre now 
shown, with the tomb where Joseph of Arima- 
thea laid the Lord, " rolled a great stone at 
the door, and departed." The reason is one of 
topographical difficulty, inasmuch as we know 
that the Redeemer was crucified, dead, and 
buried without the walls of the city; whereas 
the present church stands within them, and yet 
professes to enclose in its periphery both the 
place where He suffered and the place where 
He was buried. — " Jesus, that He might sanc- 
tify the people with his own blood, suffered 
without the gate * Here exists the difficulty, 
and the only way to solve it, without giving 
up the present locality, is to suppose that the 
ancient walls took an inward or eastern sweep 
up the hill of Acra, leaving the site of the ac- 
tual church of Constantine "without the gate." 
Dr. Robinson, after measuring, examining, and 
reasoning, comes to the conclusion that the walls 
never did make the bend required. This de- 



* Hebrews xiii. 12. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



423 



cision of the learned traveller seems to rest 
principally on the impression, that if the wall 
left out the Church of the Sepulchre, it must 
also have left out the Pool of Hezekiah*, unless 
it made a very sharp and unusual angle ; and 
again, that such a line of direction must have 
circumscribed the city within narrower bounds 
than we have reason to believe. All this may 
be very true, but still is only the ingenious ar- 
gument of an individual reasoning and observ- 
ing under great disadvantage of time, place, and 
circumstance, against the combined and unin- 
terrupted testimony of antiquity carried down 
to our own day ; so that we still are at liberty 
to vote, if we will, that the second wall of 
Josephus, in spite of /cv/cXov/jLevov, did make the 
twists and angles indispensable for leaving 
Helena's church, or her son's, "without the 
gate ;" and if this is what we wish to believe, 
we may believe it, without being compelled to 



* But this so-called Pool of Hezekiah involves another 
point, a subordinate qusestio vexata — my friend, the Rev. 
George Williams, assures me that the Pool of Hezekiah 
" is no such thing," and is ready to maintain his assertion 
against all and sundry, on this side the Atlantic or the 
other. See his "Holy City." 



424 



NOZRANI IN 



resort to the last argument of a determined 
mind, Credo quia impossibile. 

The great Rotunda of the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre is familiar to most readers, 
through the medium of pictures, with its high 
altars, gleaming with burning lamps of gold 
and silver under the open dome and over the 
sacred cavern, to which we draw near with a 
thrill never to be forgotten, remembering the 
words of the angel, "Come, see the place 
where the Lord lay ! " * * * * * 

It has been already mentioned that the dif- 
ferent communions have their several altars 
around the tomb, visited by a great concourse 
of pilgrims from time immemorial, both before 
and since the crusades, and adorned with rich 
gifts from various monarchs of Christendom* 
The ceremonies of the Holy Easter Week have 
been often described, but are not, according 
to our standard, consistent with the worship 
of the Godhead in "spirit and in truth," as 
taught by Him who is " the way and the life *. 



* The dramatic exhibition of the monks, which now 
perhaps they would find it difficult and dangerous to 
forego, is probably familiar enough to most readers, but 
jars upon the feelings of an Anglican ; so we say no more 
about it. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



425 



The Latin monks of Jerusalem, principally 
Spanish, are not men of a high stamp — much 
upon a par with the Greeks, against whom 
they entertain an inveterate animosity, returned 
with interest ; unhappily a source of weakness 
and offence to the Gospel cause, as well as a 
matter of scorn and triumph to the Mooslim, 
who hate and despise alike the partisans both 
of Pope and Patriarch. 



MOUNT OF OLIVES. 

How willingly do we turn from these moot- 
ers of vain questions and doubtful disputations, 
doting about strife of words, whereof cometh 
envy, railing, and evil surmising, to leave the 
city walls, climb the steep slope, breathe the 
pure air, and muse in the silent solitude of 
the mount whither "Jesus went as He was 
w^ont " to kneel and pray, saying, ct Not My 
will but Thine be done." It is on the Mount 
of Olives, if anywhere, that the heart of the 
pilgrim burns within him, as his awe-struck 
spirit dwells upon the Scriptures he has known 
from childhood. Upon this mountain "beau- 



426 



NOZRANI IN 



tiful were the feet of Him that brought good 
tidings, that published peace, publishing sal- 
vation, and saying unto Zion, Thy God reign- 
eth*!" From this hill the Son of God and 
Son of Man looked upon those heights of Zion 
— from this hill He beheld the city and w ept 
over it — here, in the garden of Gethsemane, 
now shaded by these gnarled and twisted olives, 
did He in one hour endure the cumulating 
agony of endless death, due as the wages of 
human sin — and here it was that "He led them 
out as far as Bethany, lifted up His hands, 
blessed them, and was carried up into heaven," 
to His Father and our Father, to His God and 
our Godf . To the mind that can realize even 
for a moment the impression of these ineffable 
mysteries, as locally connected with the scene 
around us, what is all other history, and what 
is all other marvel ! Rome and Athens are of 
the first man, of the earth earthy. These hills 
alone speak to us of the agony and bloody 
sweat, the Cross and Passion of the second 
man, " the Lord from heaven ; " here we believe 



* Isaiah liv. 7. 
+ Acts i. 12 ; Luke xxiv. 50 ; John xx. 17. 



EGYPT AKD SYRIA. 



427 



was the dread conflict borne in which the wo- 
man's Seed was to crush for ever the serpent's 
head — when Death was stripped of his sting* 
and the grave spoiled of its victory ! 

If these thoughts rush upon the spirit till it 
reels overwhelmed beneath their weight, there 
is no refuge but in the words which He him- 
self, upon this very mountain, taught to those 
who, in their name and ours, asked Him how 
to pray to our Father which is in heaven. 

Let us devote a few lines to an attempt to 
give some idea of the aspect of this scene, 
where, if anywhere upon the earth's surface, 
we might take off our shoes as standing upon 
holy ground. Leaving the Latin convent, we 
follow the long, narrow, and gloomy street, 
stony and solitary, known as the Via Dolorosa, 
by which tradition asserts that the Son of Man, 
about to be pierced and lifted up, bent His 
steps from the Judgment Hall to the "Place 
of a Scull" — "Pilate saith, Take ye Him and 
crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him." 

Passing along the northern flank of the Temple 
area, where stood the Roman fortress Antonia, 
called (e the Castle," in the twenty-first chapter 
of Acts, we issue from the city by the lion- 



428 



NOZEANI IN 



sculptured gate of St. Stephen, to look down 
the steep valley of Jehoshaphat, across the dry 
channel of the Kedron, and up the broad olive- 
scattered slope of the Eastern Mount, which 
rises at its highest ridge five hundred feet 
from the depth of the glen. Descending and 
crossing the one-arched bridge over the pebbly 
bed of the winter torrent, we come to an en- 
closure of rude stone walls, about fifty yards 
square, within w T hich stand a few gigantic trunks 
of ancient olive trees, more knotted, gnarled, 
and twisted than others elsewhere seen, — this 
is the garden of Gethsemane! — the garden of 
the "valley of oil." "When Jesus had spoken, 
he went forth with His disciples over the brook 

Cedron, where was a garden; and Judas 

also which betrayed Him knew the place, for 
J esus oft-times resorted thither with His dis- 
ciples*." There is no room, or at least no 
reason, for doubting the unbroken tradition. 
Immediately to the left are stone steps leading 
to the subterranean tomb and chapel of the 
Virgin Mary built by the crusaders, or per- 
haps earlier. Taking the middle path of three 



* John xviii. I. 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



429 



diverging at the bridge, we reach the sum- 
mit, upon which stands the ruinous church, 
now apparently a mosque, built upon the site 
formerly marked by a tradition, since over- 
ruled, as the scene of the Ascension. Here 
we look down upon the city, and into the 
forbidden precincts of the rocky platform of 
Moriah, in olden time the area of Solomon's 
Temple, now lorded over by the proudest domes 
and minarets of the Mooslim faith. Jerusalem 
lies below us like a map ; we can trace every 
height and depth where once stood those towers 
and bulwarks of Zion, which fell at the com- 
mand of Titus, stationed upon this hill to wit- 
ness the last assault of the victorious legions. 
A few yards further to the east, and we look 
across the ridge over a wild volcanic chaos, 
heaped and piled in frowning desolation, to- 
wards the Dead Sea, whose northern waters 
near the issue of Jordan, at a distance of five 
leagues, glisten through an overhanging mist 
from their deep abyss in the desert of Judaea. 
Commanding such a prospect, and connected 
with such events, the Mount of Olives is and 
has been for eighteen hundred years invested, 
to the imagination of the Christian, with an in- 



430 



nozrani in- 



terest incomparably beyond that of any other 
scene that the round globe can offer. 

Here, then, at all hours of the day, I wander 
with no companion and no guide but a well- 
worn Bible, with all the references to Olivet 
dotted upon a blank page, from the text where 
"David went up the ascent, weeping as he 
went, with his head covered and barefoot, and 
all the people with him covered every man his 
head, and they went up, weeping as they went*," 
to that where the "men of Galilee returned 
unto Jerusalem," at the bidding of the two 
who stood by them in white apparel. 

At dawn, at noon, with the setting sun, on 
the ridge or on the slope, under the shelter of 
the church wall or the shadow of the olive-tree, 
one loves the happy though lonely hours of 
reading, learning, and revolving the sacred 
oracles of grace and truth, — here, upon the 
very ground, and amid the very stones, where 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ walked, 
watched, knelt, and wept, on that dread night 
when the Shepherd was smitten and the sheep 
of the flock scattered abroad f . Here it was, in 



* 2 Samuel xv. 30. f Matthew xxviii. 31. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



431 



that dark hour, that He came again, and once 
more found them sleeping, for their eyes were 
heavy: and He left them, and went away and 
prayed the third time, saying the same words ; 
66 then cometh He and saith, Sleep on now, and 
take your rest : behold the Son of Man is be- 
trayed into the hands of sinners." * * * * 

The little village of stone huts at Bethany^ 
near the foot of the eastern slope of the mount, 
is known among the Arabs by the name of 
Lazir or Lazarus, and an excavation with steps 
is shown as the tomb whence he came forth, 
bound in the grave clothes : of Bethphage, the 
site is unknown. 



Before leaving Jerusalem, I twice rode to 
Bethlehem, about five miles due south, and on 
to Solomon's three pools, about a league be- 
yond, whence the aqueduct brought water for 
the supply of the city. These prodigious reser- 
voirs are similar to those already mentioned, 
and so constructed with huge walls of hewn 
stone, that the springs and rain-torrents from 
various channels in the valley find their way 
first to the highest and then in succession to the 
lower two. The lowest and largest is nearly 



432 



NOZEAXI IN 



six hundred feet long ; in breadth two hundred 
at one end and one hundred and fifty at the 
other; depth about forty; the remaining two 
are considerably smaller, and all three still par- 
tially lined with waterproof cement, with a 
descent by steps into each. 

The hills around these pools are wild and 
barren; their aspect very little softened by a 
great square Saracenic fortress, now deserted 
and ruinous, into which having wandered, I 
find myself suddenly in company with three 
native personages, who look as if they might 
entertain peculiar notions touching meum and 
tuum, clamorous for baksheesh, and liberal of 
the complimentary khanzeer, which being in- 
terpreted means pig, one epithet among others 
by which the Mooslim delights to honour the 
Christian. Beating a retreat as fast as prudent 
tactics permit, and glad to find my horse out- 
side, scamper off, half expecting a shot from 
one of the mischievous muskets with which all 
these vagabonds are now equipped, thanks to a 
gratuitous supply of many thousands, amiably 
landed by our squadron during the late troubles 
on the coast. 

The monks of Bethlehem, now Beit-Lahm, 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



433 



(House of Bread,) to whom I deliver a letter 
of introduction, are kind and hospitable, and 
we pass an hour in the great refectory very 
amicably. The convent is prodigiously massive, 
full of long stone passages, heavily vaulted, 
with subterranean regions which seem endless 
and pathless. They show the cell of the Latin 
father Jerome, who spent many years of his 
life within their walls, A.r>. 400; and after 
passing through the church we arrive at a 
cryptic cavern and high altar, before which 
burn continually, day and night, the golden 
lamps of the Roman, Greek, and Armenian 
communions — this is the 



SHEINE OF THE NATIVITY. 

"Thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art 
not the least among the princes of the earth, 
for out of thee shall come a governor that 
shall rule my people Israel." The good old 
monk, knowing me to be one whom he was 
bound to consider a heretic, perhaps manceu- 
vered to make me kneel, as he himself bent 
low on the pavement with a light over the cir- 

2 F 



434 



NOZRANI IN 



cular inscription, which I was as much disposed 
to reverence as his zeal could wish; for who 
would carp or cavil on the hill of Bethlehem at 
the words 

DE VIRGIj\ t E MARIA CHRISTVS JESVS HIC 
NATVS EST! 

The town of Bethlehem, very massively built 
of stone, stands nobly on a lofty and barren 
ridge; it contains about three thousand inha- 
bitants, principally Arab Christians, much em- 
ployed in making little crosses and rosaries of 
olive wood, which find their way all through 
the world. In these valleys were the shepherds 
once keeping watch over their flock by night, 
w^hen suddenly there was a multitude of the 
heavenly host, proclaiming peace on earth and 
good will to men ; — it was the dawn of the first 
Christmas, ushered in by the melody of the 
cherubim, — 

u Hark ! the herald angels sing, 
Glory to the new-born King." 

The hills and rocks are at least unchangeable 
and incorruptible witnesses, — this is Bethlehem, 
where "the Child was born:" what matters 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



435 



whether the cave of the convent be or be not 
the true cavern of the manger? 

Hie natus est Christus ! 

and the breath of heaven's breeze whispers to 

the pilgrim — 

66 Si monumentum quseras 
Circumspice." 

Ride slowly out of the valley, thinking and 
feeling as a Christian must think and feel at 
Bethlehem. Halt upon the rugged height to 
look upon the scene where the gentle Moabite 
Ruth went to glean ears of corn in the field of 
her kinsman Boaz ; hither she came for the be- 
ginning of barley harvest, because she would 
not leave Naomi in her sorrow: "Entreat me 
not to leave thee; for whither thou goest I will 
go; where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy peo- 
ple shall be my people, and thy God my God." 
— the very acme of pathos, simplicity, and 
tenderness! — "Where thou diest I will die, 
and there will I be buried : the Lord do so to 
me, and more also, if aught but death part thee 
and me." Honoured for ever be her sweet 
name and memory! And are not her name 
and memory honoured and exalted for ever in 

2 F 2 



436 



nozrani m 



the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of David*? The water in the convent is 
excellently cool and fresh, attributed to that 
well of his native city from which David longed 
to drink, saying, "O that one would give me 
water of the well of Bethlehem which is by 
the gatef!" What a trait of true heroism 
was the pouring it forth as a libation to the 
Lord! 

Visit the Greek convent of Elias, half way 
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem— a castle 
that, with a good garrison, might apparently 
resist for ever any attack of Turkish engineer- 
ing; and so it seems thought the authorities 
of Stamboul, for an order came the other day 
to stop the works that were going on under the 
plea of reparation, the government, in the pre- 
sent ricketty state of matters, being naturally 
jealous of strong-holds. Here, as elsewhere, the 
rivalry of the Greek and Latin monks is suf- 
ficiently rampant; they hate and traduce one 
another most cordially and deplorably, though 
unanimous to a tittle in their opinions, or at 

* " Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, 
and Jesse begat David the King." (Matthew i.) 
f 2 Samuel xxiii. 17. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



437 



least their expressions, with regard to our 
Anglican Bishopric. 

Re-enter the city by the lofty pointed arch 
and massive battlemented towers of the Jaffa 
gateway, over which frowns the heavy square 
citadel known by the name of David. One of 
the ancient gates of J erusalem, probably on the 
eastern or northern side, is said to have been 
called "The Needle's Eye," from its narrow- 
ness, as a safeguard against a sudden incursion 
of the desert marauders, who could not drive 
laden camels through it. Hence, perhaps, our 
Lord's illustration of cumbrous riches*. 

We must not leave J erusalem without men- 
tioning our new metropolitan church of St. 
James on Mount Zion, the foundations of 
which are at this time sunk nearly forty feet 
through a stratum of three thousand years' 
accumulated ruin, till they rest upon the firm 
rock of the holy hill. Great difficulties have 
been encountered and hitherto surmounted by 
the architect, Mr. Johns, who has had to con- 
tend not only with the treacherous nature of 

* Some would read mfxikos, a cable, for KafirjXos, a camel, 
but the Talmud speaks of an elephant going through the 
eye of a needle. 



438 



NOZRANI IN 



a soil of debris, but also with the dilatory and 
fantastic disposition of the workmen, all of 
whom are native Arabs, with the exception of 
a few Maltese masons, the Jews steadily refus- 
ing to lend their services on Mount Zion in 
the cause of the Nazarene. The design of 
the church, published and illustrated by the 
architect (1844), is somewhat Oriental in cha- 
racter, from the predominance of lofty minaret- 
looking spires, four of which, rising from the 
angles of the low massive tower between the 
transepts, rear the cross on high more boldly 
than has been attempted or permitted within 
these walls since the reign of a crusading 
king. The roof will be open and steep, the 
arches pointed, and the windows triplet; the 
material, a close-grained white stone principally 
from the quarries near Bethlehem. 

Service is now held in a temporary room 
near the cathedral works, where our Liturgical 
Worship is daily celebrated in English, German, 
and Hebrew. The bishop has been unhappily 
prevented of late, by an attack of fever, from 
officiating in person ; but we assemble together 
on Sundays, to the number of twenty or thirty, 
worshipping God on the mount, through one 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



439 



Lord and Mediator,, according to the forms of 
our National Church, and in the language of 
our distant western isle, from which we trust that 
the rays of truth may in these our times be 
reflected back to the now dark and benighted 
Zion, once so bright as the focus from which 
first shone the light that lightened the Gentiles 
— a light so piercing as to reach the remotest 
limits of our northern and rugged islands 
seventeen hundred years ago : " Hispaniarum 
omnes termini, et Gralliarum diverse nationes, 
et Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo 
vero subdita V 

The circle of European society in Jerusalem 
is of course extremely limited; but here as 
elsewhere we contrive to make all local bars 
and obstacles bend or break in submission to 
English habits and English notions. While 
drinking tea in the bishop's drawing room, as 
a guest in the midst of his very amiable family, 
with candles burning, the urn hissing on the 
table, and the curtains drawn, one is apt to 



* Tertullian, a.d. 200, bearing witness to the prevalence 
of Christianity in the remotest districts of Britain, inacces- 
sible to the Roman legions. 



440 



NOZRANI IN 



forget that the windows look out on Hezekiah's 
Pool, and that we are really in the very city 
that witnessed the stupendous and incompre- 
hensible events, by which the ineffable scheme 
of our redemption has been worked out accord- 
ing to a decree pronounced before the founda- 
tions of the world were laid. 

My reverend and learned friend the chaplain, 
too, has succeeded in bringing his study nearer 
to the standard of Eton and Cambridge than 
could have been reasonably expected; but per- 
haps a six months' fellowship with the Bedouin 
and Fellaheen* may have enhanced my appre- 
ciation for anything approaching to civilized 
life. The absence of our distinguished consul, 
Mr. Young, now in England for his health, is 
much felt by every one ; but the Syrian fever 
seems an unavoidable ordeal for all new comers. 
My letters to the consul are of course useless, 
but to Mr. Johns, acting in his stead, I am 
indebted for much courtesy and kindness. 

This little book has already nearly reached 

* Singular, Bed a wee ) Wandering or wild 

Plural, Bedouin or Bedaweenf Arab. 
Singular, Fellah \ , . 
Plural, FeUahtJ W<aaa °S or > me Arab ' 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



441 



the appointed limit, and must now draw to a 
close ; but the recollection of a week's expedition 
to the Dead Sea pleads hard with the author for 
the memorial of a few lines, — the more so as 
some preliminary difficulties threatened for a 
time to baffle a much-cherished wish. 



EXCUKSION TO THE DEAD SEA. 

The wilderness of Judaea is now, as it ever 
has been, a lawless and perilous region, and 
the traveller who goes down unprotected from 
Jerusalem to Jericho, is as likely to fall among 
thieves as he was eighteen hundred years ago. 
The only means of security consists in taking 
some of the rogues in pay, and this plan is 
accordingly adopted by all Europeans who pro- 
pose an excursion to the Mare Mortuum. 

I had within a few days become acquainted 
with an American traveller, looking out like 
myself for a compagnon de voyage, so we agreed 
to go together and make our arrangements mu- 
tual; he, however, unluckily opened negocia- 
tions with one Bedouin sheyk and I with ano- 
ther, and hence a question involving nothing 



442 



NOZEANI IN 



less than the honour and glory of two furious 
rival tribes, as vindictive and blood-thirsty as 
any of Homer's heroes. We were inclined at 
first to laugh at the much ado about nothing, 
but on finding that we must either give up our 
expedition or run the risk of a general engage- 
ment in the desert, we went before the Basha 
with a janissary and interpreter, and begged to 
know, on the strength of a Firman from Con- 
stantinople, whether he could and would protect 
us, if we set off alone. It was an amusing 
scene ; but we really felt sorry for the dignified 
governor, smoking his pipe on the cushions, 
when he was obliged very reluctantly to ac- 
knowledge that he had no power over the wild 
tribes who ride up to the gates and within the 
walls. My New York friend, in the true spirit 
of "a free and enlightened citizen," insisted 
upon security for life and property within the 
dominions of the Sultan, whose safe-conduct he 
produced, at the same time laying down the 
law of nations with great emphasis and per- 
spicuity ; but we both agreed in private not to 
risk martyrdom in the cause of public principle. 
After several days' conference we succeed in 
bringing the contending powers to an amicable 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



443 



arrangement, and all break bread, eat salt and 
smoke the pipe of peace together, on the un- 
derstanding that the old Sheyk to whom over- 
tures had been first made, should escort us 
unmolested by the other to J ericho, the Jordan, 
and the Dead Sea, and bring us back to the 
gates of J erusalem within the week. 

The next morning sees us prancing along the 
wild mountain glens with an escort of twenty 
swarthy, sinewy, well-armed, well-mounted 
sons of Ishmael, with our noble white-bearded 
chief looking as dignified and placid as a scrip- 
tural patriarch, his young men shaking their 
long lances and careering round him at full 
speed, in all the fiery life and joy of Bedouin 
freedom. The Jew-purveyor having had the 
goodness to provide me a sorry steed with which 
I had reason to be heartily disgusted before we 
were beyond the walls, the kind old sheyk, 
evidently much scandalized, said not a word, 
but dismounting lent me his own beautiful 
mare, taking another from one of his followers, 
and sending off the wretched pack-horse with 
compliments to his master. I never saw finer 
men of their kind than these untamed marau- 
ders of the wilderness — all bone and sinewy 



444 



NOZEANI IN 



muscle, with features full of energetic expres- 
sion and eyes flashing like diamonds. Their 
long, black, why hair swings about with the 
yellow ends of the turban hanging down to the 
shoulders, and adds still more wildness to their 
tawny countenance. The rope round the head 
has been already mentioned, but I am not one 
of those who think them specially deserving of 
such an appendage round their necks : they live 
as their fathers lived before them, and call 
things by different names from ours : with us 
they pass as idle, thieving, murdering vaga- 
bonds; but among themselves, as chivalrous, 
fierce, and warlike lords of the desert, levying 
tax and tribute upon all intruders. They have 
their virtues as well as vices ; such as, tempe- 
rance, cheerfulness, sagacity, hospitality, and 
courage. They despise our walled houses as 
much as we can sneer at then- dingy tents; agri- 
culture they account servile—pasturage, the fit 
resource for freemen. They pitch their tents 
wherever they find food for cattle, and strike 
them when it lasts no longer. They live upon 
milk and meat; the fleeces and camel-skins 
furnish shelter and raiment, and plunder does 
the rest. Such has been the life of the Ish- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



445 



maelite from the days when the son of the 
bondswoman was cast out, and their life is not 
without its blessing from the God of Abraham 
— " As for Ishmael, I have heard thee : behold, 
I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, 

and will multiply him exceedingly, and 

I will make him a great nation*." 

A ride of twenty miles, through as wild 
a region of barren rocks as ever frowned 
upon a pilgrim, brings us to the ominous and 
portentous shores of the Dead Sea, thirteen 
hundred feet below the level of the Mediter- 
ranean. 

This depression of the waters is one of the 
most extraordinary peculiarities in the other- 
wise marvellous Bahr Loot, or Sea of Lot. 
Many opinions and various estimates were in 
vogue, more or less differing from the truth, 
until finally set at rest in 1841 by the Ord- 
nance survey under Lieutenant Symonds, who 
found the surface of the lake thirteen hundred 
and twelve feet below that of the Mediterra- 
nean. We have then to remember that the 
waters of the Dead Sea are sunk in a huge 



* Genesis xvii, 20 



446 



NOZRANI IN 



volcanic cauldron, from which the naked lime- 
stone cliffs rise nearly perpendicularly east and 
west, sometimes to the height of fifteen hundred 
or even two thousand feet. The depth of the 
sea itself has never been ascertained, but is 
known, in some places on the western shore, 
to exceed three hundred fathoms: its extreme 
length is about fifty English miles, and average 
breadth nearly ten. 

There is an awful character of terror about 
this region that deeply impresses the imagi- 
nation ; and I never felt more intensely inter- 
ested than when approaching the desolate cliffs 
that tower over the solitary and gloomy surface 
of the death-like waters. Our track from Je- 
rusalem has been principally in the direction 
of the Kedron valley, passing within view of 
the Deir Mar Sdba> or convent of St. Sabas, 
founded in the sixth century ; and the scenery 
of this route alone is enough to cast a dark 
shade over the mind of a traveller, — abrupt 
rocks, deep ravines, and yawning caverns, with- 
out water, without herbage, and without life 
even for a summer's fly. The caves have in all 
ages been a refuge for outlaws and banditti, 
safe in these inaccessible wilds from the ven- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



447 



geance of any government. Allusions to these 
hiding-places frequently occur in Scripture: 
" Because of the Midianites the children of 
Israel made them the dens which are in the 
mountains, and caves, and strong-holds*." It 
was in an immense cavern in this neighbour- 
hood that David and his six hundred men hid 
themselves, when he cut off the skirt of Saul's 
robe in the wilderness of En-gedi, the " foun- 
tain of the goat," on the border of the lake in 
the latitude of Hebron. 

From the summit of the Has el Feskhah, 
a promontory jutting into the northern end 
of the sea, and a thousand feet above its sur- 
face, we have a view of the whole extent of 
the Asphaltite Lake, from the plains of Usdum 
or Sodom at the southern extremity, to the 
plains of Jericho and Moab to the north, where 
the green-banked Jordan pours its fresh stream 
in vain to sweeten the bitter and deadly waters, 
upon whose vast expanse we are looking down 
with a mingled feeling of terror and delight. 
At this point the mountains trend away to the 
north-west, and we scramble down break-neck 



* Judges vi. 2. 



448 



NOZRANI IN 



gulleys till we reach the beach near the hot salt 
fountain of Feskhah, in the midst of a jungle 
of cane bushes. The shore is covered with 
shining pebbles, among which are many black, 
pitchy, and sulphury lumps, both earth and 
water seeming to reek with volcanic and de- 
structive elements. Floating islets of bitumi- 
nous substance occasionally make their appear- 
ance, and are cut with hatchets to be carried off 
in fragments by the Arabs, who sell them for 
ornaments to the Jerusalem Pilgrims. The 
sensation on the skin after bathing is slimy and 
greasy to a disgusting degree, from which I 
was not cleansed till next day by a dip in the 
waters of the Jordan. The specific gravity of 
the water is well known to exeeed that of any 
other, being a saturated solution of various salts, 
often submitted to chemical analysis. It is of 
course perfectly true that no fish can live in 
such a medium: when any small fry venture 
out of the sweet river into this sea of gall, they 
pay for their temerity with their lives, and soon 
float ashore. The feeling of buoyancy in the 
water is disagreeable, and almost alarming from 
its unusual character ; and this, with the clam- 
my stickiness on the skin, soon brings one to 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



449 



land again. During these dog-days the level 
of the sea is necessarily at its minimum, and 
the evaporation .of course renders the saline 
solution denser than at any other time; after 
the winter rains there must be a considerable 
ehange both in the height and the constituent 
elements, and this may account for a variation 
in the different estimates and tables of analysis. 
It is not true that birds cannot fly across, but 
they seldom do, because there is no induce- 
ment — no fish, no flies, no fruit. 

The only attempt on record to circumnavi- 
gate the Dead Sea, was that of poor Costigan, 
an enterprising Irishman, who carried a little 
skiff from Jerusalem, and launched with his 
Maltese servant on an ill-fated voyage, the 
burning sun of July, with an agony of thirst, 
bringing on fever, of which he died without 
being able to give any account of his observa- 
tions. His man, who was recovered with great 
difficulty, could only talk of their horrible suf- 
ferings while rowing for life in such a smoking 
cauldron. 

Sleeping in bivouac on the heights above the 
fountain, we arrive about noon next day on the 
banks of the Jordan, traversing a level, salt- 

2 Gr 



450 



nozraxi m 



crusted plain eight or ten miles in breadth, 
beaming with a close, suffocating heat, almost 
intolerable to man or beast. But this is Jor- 
dan, where we can drink and bathe, and lie in 
the shadow of the willows and cane -thickets of 
the sweet waters of Israel. Tradition varies as 
to the scene of the baptism of our Lord at the 
hands of John, the Latin pilgrims frequenting 
a place a mile or two north of that whose claim 
is supported by the Greeks. The river is at 
this season a rapid, whity-brown stream, about 
thirty yards broad, and perhaps ten to fifteen 
deep. There is no appearance of a ford where 
we halted, though so marked on the map. The 
water, like that of the Nile, is peculiarly soft and 
sweet, though by no means very clear. The 
scenery of the banks can scarcely lay claim to 
beauty ; the interest lies in the history, in- 
dependently of the charm attached to a fresh 
flowing river in these torrid and thirsty re- 
gions. The Jordan rises from Mount Her- 
mon, about a hundred miles north of the 
Dead Sea, into which it pours itself, after a 
course lying nearly in a straight line due south, 
passing through the lakes of Merom and Gali- 
lee. The name Jordan, pronounced in Hebrew 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



451 



Yardane* } signifies the flowing or running stream^ 
as the Rhein in German. Whether evaporation 
is sufficient to account for its not issuing again 
from the Mare Mortuum, may be a disputed 
question ; but certain it is, that whereas this, 
and several other smaller streams at the south- 
east, run into the lake, none flow from it, al- 
though the southern waters towards Usdmn 
filter through the sands into morass and quag- 
mire. The valley of the Jordan is called in 
Arabic El- Ghor, and varies from a quarter to 
half a mile in breadth, easily distinguished at a 
great distance, by the belt of verdure through 
which the narrow stream winds like a silver 
ribbon. 

Of J ericho, " the city of palm trees," no re- 
presentative remains but a wretched collection 
of hovels, and the mutilated name Beegah, or 
"fragrance," in honour of its perfumed balsam 



* It may be regretted that the euphonic sound of the 
Hebrew yod (like our y) should have been represented in 
English by the j or soft g, as in Jericho, Jordan, Joshua, and 
above all in the magnificent and mystic tetragrammaton. 
of the aoristic JHVH, or Jehovah. The error must be 
imputed to our translators following the German, forget- 
ting or neglecting the y sound of the Teutonic 

2 g2 



452 KOZRANI IN 

groves that exist no longer. It is said to have 
one of the hottest climates in the worlds ascribed 
to the sun's rays, reflected from the surround- 
ing mountains, beaming down to a focus upon 
a plain depressed several hundred feet below 
the sea. We were heartily glad to rise from 
its suffocating atmosphere to the rugged, pre- 
cipitous ridge of the Quarantana, deriving its 
name from the tradition wmich marks it as the 
scene of the forty days' temptation. This wild 
eliff, rising to a prodigious height in a perpen- 
dicular wall, is honeycombed, like the rocks of 
the Thebaid, with cells and caverns, once the 
abode of anchorites and eremites, who passed 
their days in such "humility and neglecting 
of the body," as the apostle honours with no 
higher praise than that of "a show of wisdom*." 

* Religion has been constantly abused to the purposes 
of knavery and folly by hypocrites or enthusiasts forget- 
ting or pretending to forget that our proper business, 
while here, as taught by God's truth, is on this earth such 
as we find it ; any attempt to set nature at nought by warp- 
ing or cramping the development of body or mind is fana- 
ticism ; we are not meant for much inward or upward 
r gazing in this stage of existence ; it turns the brain dizzy ; 
our true field of vision is over our own sphere of action, 
limited by a sensible horizon ; by looking into the water 
below we may discern the stars overhead, but gazing too 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



45a 



The neighbourhood of Jericho might, no doubt, 
be yet made to yield as productive a return for 
human labour as in its proudest and most pros- 
perous days ; but there are none to till the soil — 
a few scattered huts and Bedouin tents, pitched 
near the fountain Es- Sultan, contain the only 
human beings we have seen in traversing the 
vast plains, once the vicinity of a noble and 
populous city, the favourite residence of the 
magnificent but unhappy Herod, miscalled the 
Great, who ended his wretched days within its 
walls. The only fragments of antiquity are of 
Roman date, with little or no interest. 

The fifth evening brings us back to Jeru- 
salem, after a thorough wild- Arab ride of about 
a hundred miles, with neither let nor hindrance 
of any kind : and we part with our long-lanced 
escort in high good humour at the gates of the 
Holy City, from which I must now soon issue* 
in all probability never to enter again. 



long at the stars overhead, we perhaps see no water till we 
tumble into it; so must man be content for a time to 
behold and believe ideal tilings heavenly, faintly reflected 
by real things earthly, as in a glass darkly, creation dimly 
manifesting the Creator to the creature, whose law should 
be " Deurn cole atque crede, sed noli quoerere." 



454 



NOZRANI 1ST 



EXCURSION TO JAFFA. 

Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, now called Yafa, 
must not detain us long. The distance from 
Jerusalem is about forty miles, but the first 
half through deep and rugged defiles that keep 
our horses at a foot's pace. 

The terrific mountain pass of the Bab-el- 
Wady, or gate of the valley, near Latmn, is 
one of the keys of Jerusalem, and has perhaps 
been the scene of as much hard fighting as 
any defile in the world; it looks as if a few 
guns might hold it against an army. The last 
fierce contest was during its occupation by the 
troops of Ibraheem Basha. We felt a relief 
in emerging; from under the shadow of the 
dark and dangerous crags, to look upon the 
broad dusty plains of Ramleh, at the Latin 
convent of which, large and massive as a fortress, 
w r e are received very kindly, and should have 
passed the night comfortably, had it not been 
for the overpowering heat. 

The great object of interest in this neigh- 
bourhood is a magnificent square tower of 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



455 



Gothic or Saracenic architecture ; for, as Lieut. 
Lismahago long ago remarked, Saracenic seems 
the more appropriate name of the two ; it stands 
in the midst of extensive vaulted sub-structures 
half a mile west of the monastery, rising to a 
height of about one hundred and thirty feet, 
built of beautiful hewn stone, with steps leading 
to an external gallery. It is now decided that 
this tower was built by the Arabians in the 
fourteenth century, and never was connected as 
a campanile with any Christian churchy though 
long supposed and asserted. The gallery out- 
side was a madneh for the Mooezzin's call to 
prayer. The edifice itself is solid, with the 
exception of the staircase, and no bells could 
ever have been hung within it ; the Moham- 
mad an s detest bells. Yet the aspect of the 
tower, with its buttresses and pointed arches, 
is so like a Christian church and so unlike a 
Mohammadan minaret, that we may well under- 
stand the prevalent supposition of its ecclesi- 
astical origin. An Austrian artist, whom I 
met at the convent, was kind enough to give 
me a sketch of this beautiful structure, falling 
away in successive stories towards the summit, 
whence the view of the rugged mountains of 



456 



NOZKANI IN 



Judaea, the fertile plains of Sharon, and the 
bright blue Mediterranean, is one of the finest 
in Palestine. About two miles to the north 
we look down upon the village of Ludd, the 
ancient Lydda, "nigh to Joppa," where the 
Apostle Peter raised -ZEneas from his bed of 
palsy*. Here too are magnificent ruins, w T hich 3 
on returning from Jaffa, my Austrian friend 
and I visit by the light of the moon, which 
throws the long dark shadow of a crescent- 
capped minaret through one of the noble arches 
of what was once a Christian church, dedicated 
to God's worship in the name of our patron 
saint of Lydda, in days of yore, when crusading 
Richard and his iron-mailed chivalry charged 
the Saracen to the cry of St. George and merry 
England. Palestine abounds with legends of 
St. George, who was born they say at Lydda, 
and fought his famous battle with the dragon 
at Bey rout. 

The ride from Ramleh to Jaffa, twelve or 
fourteen miles, is through an open undulating 
hedgeless and treeless country, now dry and 
dusty, but at an earlier season no doubt verdant 



* Acts ix. 32, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



457 



and productive. The burning sun of the 
Syrian dog-days must needs be fatal to the 
roses of Sharon and the lilies of the valley. 

Jaffa or Joppa, the sea-port of Jerusalem 
though nearly forty miles distant, contains five 
or six thousand inhabitants, about as many 
hundreds of whom profess the Christian faith, 
principally according to the rites of the Greek 
church. The convent is an immense stone 
building, commanding a magnificent prospect 
of the sea, over which it towers with broad 
terraces and numerous steps, too much within 
cannon-shot from the roads to be altogether 
agreeable to the inmates in the late bombarding 
times, when our twenty-four and thirty-six- 
pound balls were so liberally distributed along 
the coast. But one cannot look at Jaiia or 
the neighbouring sands without remembering 
the murderous slaughter of the garrison by 
Buonaparte, not in the heat and fury of battle, 
but in the cold-blooded and deliberate butchery 
of military execution, when more than three 
thousand Turkish prisoners of war, who had 
surrendered upon the promise of life, were 
inarched down to the sea and massacred, un- 
armed and unresisting. The account given by 



458 



NOZRANI IN 



Frenchmen who witnessed this diabolical deed, 
is fatal to Napoleon's name, which history will 
write in blood as she records the siege of Jaffa. 
When the ammunition of the soldiers failed, 
after firing for hours at the wretched groups 
writhing in gore on the sand, the order was 
given to finish them with the bayonet ; and 
one scarcely knows whether the victims or the 
executioners were most to be pitied. 

The earliest mention of J oppa which occurs 
in Scripture is that of King Huram's promise to 
Solomon : " We will cut wood out of Lebanon, 
as much as thou shalt need, and we will bring 
it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa, and thou 
shalt carry it up to Jerusalem." The naviga- 
tion from the Lebanon coast to J oppa would be 
about a hundred and fifty miles — a transport 
much more easily accomplished than that of 
dragging cedars, firs, and algums a third of the 
distance through such a country as lies between 
the coast and the Holy City. The choice of a 
hill fortress like Jerusalem for the capital of 
the promised land, is altogether in accordance 
with the spirit of the code which interdicted 
commerce and cavalry. The object of the law- 
giver was to maintain a separate and peculiar 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



459 



people, preserving the knowledge and worship 
of the one true God in the midst of idolatry 
and polytheism*. Commerce, he knew, would 
fuse and amalgamate the distinctive marks of 
Israel in the common mass of surrounding 
heathenism; and hence agriculture alone is 
recognised in the Pentateuch as the basis of 
national strength and prosperity. Solomon is 
the first of whom we read, " that he had traffic 
of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of 
Arabia, and of the governors of the country 
and we know that all Solomon's wisdom did 
not keep him clear of gross and grievous 



* This predominant purpose of separation sufficiently 
accounts for many regulations in the Mosaic Law, which 
would seem otherwise useless, though again the obscurity 
may arise from nothing but our own ignorance; as for 
instance in the prohibition of woollen and linen in one gar- 
ment, of ploughing with an ox and an ass, and so forth. 
There is one enactment however, sufficiently intelligible, 
and would that it were feasible in our own society, that of 
returning the poor man's pledged blanket " when the sun 
goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment and bless 
thee, and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord 
thy God." It would afford a sad index of London poverty 
this winter to know how many sleep or try to sleep without 
the blanket, whose alibi the ciphered and dirty " ticket " 
too clearly accounts for. 



NOZBAKI IN 



violation of "the first of all the command- 
ments 

The distance of Jerusalem from the sea 
would have been an insuperable bar, humanly 
speaking, to the rearing of the Temple, had 
not Solomon contracted close alliance with the 
maritime kino; of Phoenicia, through whom he 
had access, not only to the cedars of Lebanon, 
but to the gold and silver and ivory of Tarshish. 
It was to this same Tarshish also that J onah 
set sail from Joppa, when he found there a 
ship bound for that mysterious land, which, if 
out of the Mediterranean, must have been 
reached either by the Pelusiac Canal or the 
Cape of Good Hope. The Tarshish of Jonah is 
however In all probability the Tarsus of Cilicia, 
perhaps " no mean city" even in the prophet's 
time, some thousand years or so before the 
illustrious mission of her great citizen and 
faithful son, though he was indeed a citizen of 
the world in the unhacknied sense of the con- 
ventional phrase. But no incident in the his- 
tory of Joppa can ever approach in universal 
import and grandeur, to that of the apostolic 



* Mark xii. 20. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



461 



trance on the house-top of Simon the tanner, 
by the sea-side. St. Peter went up a Jew, 
and came down a Catholic. Finding many 
come together, he said unto them, " Ye know 
how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that 
is a Jew to keep company or to come unto one 
of another nation ; but God hath showed me 
that I should not call any man common or 
unclean*." Perhaps no miracle recorded in 
Scripture carries with it more indisputable evi- 
dence of Divine interposition than that which 
could thus radically change in a moment the 
life-long tone and temper of a strong and 
matured mind; expanding the narrow stubborn 
and exclusive genius of limited Judaism into 
the open, benign and boundless spirit of catholic 
Christianity : " Of a truth I perceive that God 
is no respecter of persons f." 



* Acts xi. 28. 

+ Should or should not a Jew be permitted to take his 
seat in a British Parliament as the representative of a 
British constituency ? A stirring question of the day — 
shall we give up our high name and be false to our proud 
lineage as through and through to the heart's core a Chris- 
tian race and nation ? Shall we admit to the framing of 
laws for our native land, one who bows no knee to Jesus 
of Nazareth, as the Messiah of God? All the feelings of a 



462 NOZKANI IN 

The monks of Jaffa made no very favour- 
able impression on my friend or myself; our 

zealous and religious Christian spirit rise in alarm, revolt, 
and refusal at the startling thought. But is it a question 
to be decided by the feelings of a zealous spirit ? — upon con- 
sideration, it may seem not — rather a question of constitu- 
tional theory, to be settled by reference to the principles 
of our political economy — demanding a cool impartial 
head, rather than a warm indignant heart. The Commons 
House represents the people ; if the people then be happily 
bound together in unity of faith and steadiness of purpose, 
it will appear in the homogeneous religious character of 

their Council at Westminster — but if not why still let 

the vane on the national house-top point truly, though the 
wind be stormy and foul for the national voyage — it 
would be childish and useless to tie it the way we wish. 
"We may and must as Christian men grieve that citizens 
professing the same Name should prefer entrusting their 
political interests to the keeping of an alien to the Faith — 
but a fact yields not to feeling or opinion. An English 
subject, though of Jewish creed and blood, is not thereby 
disqualified as a penal offender from representing any body 
of Englishmen who may choose him by legal vote — there 
is nothing morally or politically against him — as an indi- 
vidual he may be as worthy and as wise as any subject of 
the Imperial crown, no religious charge moreover can lie 
against him for holding by God's will his own belief and 
that of his fathers — the charge, if any be made, must be 
against those who seem to neglect or defy their profession 
by their practice — and this, alas ! is dangerous ground for 
any of us to hold in judgment on his neighbour, assuredly 
no plea whereupon to disfranchise our fellow citizens. 
There is One who judgeth — in mercy— knowing what spirit 
we are of. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



463 



reception could scarcely be called cordial, and 
the cuisine of rancid oil was not calculated to 
throw couleur de rose over our dirty dismal 
sleeping-vaults. We next day received very 
pressing invitations to the houses of two or 
three native functionaries, figuring under the 
imposing names of Console Inglese, Francese, 
&c; to whom, with all due acknowledgments, 
we made our bows p. p. c, saddled our horses 
and departed, sleeping at Ramleh, riding across 
the valley of Ajalon (now Ydlo) and over the 
hill of Gibeon*, till we arrive once more within 
the walls of Jerusalem, which in three days 
I again leave with a single Arab servant and 
a couple of horses to travel northward towards 
Beyrout. 

My last walk through St. Stephen's gate, and 
round by the eastern flank of the Temple, is 
with the Rev. George Williams, on the even- 
ing of the first day of the week — the sun 
setting behind the city, the deep glen of J e- 
hoshaphat already in dim twilight under our 
feet, and the dusky shadow of Mount Moriah 
lengthening to the summit of the sacred hill. 



* Joshua x. 12. 



464 



XOZKAXI IX 



upon whose broad, olive-scattered slope I can 
never expect to wander again. Once more I 
lay my hand on these huge foundations of the 
Temple wall : i: Master, see what manner of 
stones are here ! " — once more a long lina-erins; 
look over Kedron to the darkening trees of 
Gethsemane, and now the scene is impressed 
for ever upon the memory — photographed for 
ever upon the eye : :i If I forget thee, O J eru- 
saleni, may my right hand forget her cunning." 



JERUSALEM TO NAZARETH. 

Monday, July 25th. Early in the morning 
Matteo and the mookero (groom) make their ap- 
pearance with the horses, and after the inevit- 
able Arab delay of an hour or two about nothing 
at all, we wend our slow way over the rugged 
and slippery stones of Jerusalem, my friend 
the chaplain seeing me off with a Vive, Vale. 
Passing through the Ions;, narrow, and dark 
bazaar, vaulted over with masonry, Matteo pur- 
chases what he thinks proper and essential for 
the march, having carte blanche to the extent 
of fifty piastres, or ten shillings sterling, on 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 465 

condition that he does not ask me or my horse 
to carry any of his marketing. The more one 
travels in the East, the more one rejoices in 
the absence of needless luggage, which is but 
another word for tiresome lumber: a cloak, a 
carpet, and a change of raiment are all that a 
man really wants in Syria at this season ; a pair 
of saddle-bags will hold his wardrobe and li- 
brary ; his servant, or the mookero, takes charge 
of the wicker kafass containing the batterie de 
cuisine. A tent is a very troublesome thing to 
carry, and the shade of a tree or the shelter 
of a rock answers the purpose equally well by 
day; while at night an open elevated bivouac 
is the healthiest and safest. The neighbour- 
hood of trees always argues more or less damp, 
which is to be avoided on peril of the fever. 

Issuing by the Northern or Damascus gate, 
with the grotto of Jeremiah to the right, we 
take the Nablous or Samaria track, and halt 
for a few minutes to enter once more the tomb 
of Helena (or perhaps the Maccabees) about 
three-quarters of a mile from the walls. This 
Helena is not the mother of Constantine, but 
some foreign queen, who, before the days of 
Josephus, embraced the Jewish faith. The 

2 H 



466 



NOZBANI m 



sepulchre is architecturally one of the finest 
monuments in Palestine, but of a Roman order, 
possessing no great Biblical interest beyond the 
fact of its having existed in the time of our 
Lord. Pausanias, however, thought it worthy 
of a special description, enhanced with a mar- 
vellous tale of a sort of u open-sesame " door, 
imagined by himself or somebody else. The 
several chambers are spacious and lofty, hewn 
smooth in the solid rock, with side receptacles 
for urns and sarcophagi, in which, according to 
classic custom, were treasured and honoured the 
dust and ashes of the dead. One lesson at least 
of practical wisdom, we moderns, with all our 
science, might learn from the ancients; for they, 
whether Jews or Gentiles, were never guilty 
of poisoning the living with the stench of the 
dead ; their " whited sepulchres " were never 
" garnished" within the gates of a city, far less 
were the sacred walls of a consecrated temple 
ever polluted with the rotten festering of " dead 
men's bones and all uncleanness." Strange, 
that though the Author of life and death has 
made our senses to revolt and sicken at putre- 
faction, we should yet choose to dispute His 
will and way by piling the corpses of the dead 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



467 



under the noses of the living! Scripture makes 
the last abomination of defilement to consist in 
"filling their places with the bones of men/' 
while we heap our crypts with coffins and crowd 
our cities with cemeteries, convinced that we 
fear God and honour man, though we pollute 
the air and poison the people*. 



* Why not consecrate for the Christian burial of an 
annual hundred thousand corpses, a strip of ten miles or 
so on each of the now comparatively deserted and grass- 
grown roads that lead out of London ? How significant and 
beautiful was this plan, as pursued by the ancient Romans, 
and how even yet, after the roll of two thousand years, 
does the stranger pause in meditative mood on the solitary 
highways of the Eternal City, as his eye falls on the simple 
and solemn Siste Viator! of the mouldering marble ! Surely 
the turnpike trusts might be induced for love and money 
to grant us poor smoke-dried Babylonians a line of green 
turf bank, shone upon by the summer sun, buffeted by the 
free winds, and washed by the fresh rains of heaven ; and 
there might dust return to dust in a way more soothing to 
the soul of imaginative man than when his own cold body, 
or worse still, that of another loved as his own, is rudely 
rammed down into a black compost of stale putridity in the 
midst of all the jarring sounds and sickening sights of a 
close-packed living crowd, for ever staring and roaring 
in heartless mockery round the dreary dwellings of the 
City dead. 

The view of a filthy foggy burial yard in London, with 
its slow festering fermentation of deep-piled flesh and 
bone, almost makes one sigh for the lambent flame and 

2 H 2 



468 



XOZRAXI IX 



Crossing for the last time the northern chan- 
nel of the dry Kectron, we ride on steadily 
through an uninhabited, open, hilly country for 
about twelve miles, till we halt at Beer, which 
means a well or "fountain," the name of a 
village of some five or six hundred inhabi- 
tants, enjoying the high privilege of a fresh 
and abundant spring of water, to which the 
veiled women still come down at the time of 
the evening, like Rebekah " with her pitcher 
upon her shoulder. 5 ' 

About a mile and a half north of Beer are 
the ruins of Bethel, or " House of God,*' a 
name frequently recurring in the Old Testa- 
ment, bestowed by Jacob upon the place where 
" he tarried all night because the sun was set/' 
and saw the vision of the ladder, with the angels 
ascending and descending upon it*. Here also 
the king of the ten tribes set up one of his 
golden calves — "He set the one in Beth-el, and 

fragrant smoke of the classic pile, from which, on the sweet 
wings of the wind, were wafted dust to dust, ashes to ashes, 
as though softly sown again by ministers of Heaven in the 
gentle bosom of mother earth, (here to revolve in cycle of 
changing life, till springing skyward at a new summons of 
the Lord and Giver of immortality, 
* Genesis xxviii. I9 t 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



469 



the other put he in Dan." The plains we now 
traverse are famed for their fine pasture, of 
which we see at present no evidence, the whole 
surface of the soil being brown and dry as a 
brick-kiln. Matteo and the mookero are cla- 
morous for sleeping in a village, which I am 
equally determined not to do, being more afraid 
of the certain attack of the vermin* than the 



* It doubtless detracts from the poetry of Holy Land 
travel, to allude again and again to this domestic nastiness 
so far removed from godliness ; the excuse for hazarding 
such unseemly truth to ears polite, is the fact of its very 
lasting impression upon the senses of a fastidious English 
pilgrim. Yet, after all, we should look at home before 
sneering and sniffing too primly at Oriental abominations, 
remembering that a foreign wayfarer in these wilds is 
likely to become familiar with a class of his fellow men, 
of whose corresponding order in his own land he perhaps 
knows little or nothing. Far better would it be, if we all 
did know more of the realities of lower life, the habits and 
means of that lowest and largest stratum which is the base 
of the social pyramid. The most cheering sign of these 
gloomy days, is that the gentlemen of England do begin to 
know and acknowledge the fearful brutalizing beastliness 
in which myriads of our people are dragging out their 
degrading scrofulous existence, on excised allowance of 
air, light, and water, dribbled with scant measure and high 
cost to the pestiferous back-settlements of the great un- 
washed. If any one in this Babylon wish for an easy, 
cheerful and useful lesson in real political economy, as well 
as practical Christian ethics, (which ought to be the same 



470 



NOZR-AXI IN 



possible onslaught of the haramiyeh (robbers); 
so we light our fire and pass the night al-fresco 3 
with a good supply of pilaf, and no lack of 
such pillows as in this place once propped the 
head of the patriarch. 

The second evening brings us to a station, 
scarcely second in interest to any throughout 

thing.) let him pay a visit to the model lodging-house in 
George-street, St. Giles's, to learn how the poor may be re- 
lieved from their heaviest burthen, the small- consumption 
tax, and to see what combination can achieve when guided 
by intelligent philanthropy. If he have nerve enough for 
the hideous and dangerous, let him better his instruction 
by the effect of contrast, in a visit to one of the old estab- 
lishments just opposite, in Church-lane, or the casual 
wards of a parish work-house. Let university undergra- 
duates, when about to put away childish things, strengthen 
themselves in manhood by such a morning's mental dis- 
cipline, and their future responsible career may be the 
wiser and happier for themselves and their country. Let all 
of us see what may be done by willing wisdom in the way of 
human cleanliness, decency, neatness, and comfort, with 
the same means which under the rule of vicious folly 
brings us down to the level of wallowing swine. Xo small 
boon in these up-and-down days, for any of us, that we 
may, in extremis, find a good bed, good bath, good kitchen, 
good coffee room, with a quantum suff. of air, light, space, 
warmth, and water, and last not least, an independent con- 
sciousness of paying one's way, in nobody's debt, for two 
shillings and four pence a week. Honour of the true sort 
to those who have achieved the triumph I 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



471 



the length and breadth of the Holy Land, 
amidst a cluster of names the least of which 
would repay a pilgrimage of more toil and peril 
than I have yet encountered — Gerizim and 
Ebal, Shechem and Sychar, J oseph's tomb and 
J acob's well, all within a circle of a mile, and 
the round wooded hill of Samaria rising in sight 
about a league to the north. 

The present town of Nahlous, a corruption 
of Neapolis, is identical with the Shechem of 
the Old and the Sychar of the New Testament, 
u near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave 
to his son Joseph*," having erected there an 
altar dedicated to El- Elohe- Israel — u God the 
God of Israel t." The long, narrow, stone- 
built street, which is now the representative 
of these scriptural names, lies exactly in the 
middle of a contracted valley between the two 
mountains, Gerizim to the south and Ebal to 
the north, each rising about a thousand feet 
above the well of Jacob and the tomb of Joseph, 
both of which latter are situate in the plain a 
little eastward of the path which winds round 
the foot of Gerizim leading to the town. Under 



* John iv. 5. 



+ Genesis xxxiii. 20, 



472 



KOZSANI IX 



the foot of this mountain, and close to the scene 
of our Lord's ever-memorable conference with 
the woman of Samaria, we pass the night ; and 
no one needs telling, that a disciple of Christ 
from the islands of the west never rested near 
this well without reading, marking, and learn- 
ing the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John : 
"Jfow Jacob's well was there. Jesus there- 
fore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus 
on the well : and it was about the sixth hour/' 
This, according to modern computation of time, 
was most probably six in the evening, at the 
hour when women of the East still come to 
draw water. Our Lord was travelling, appa- 
rently on foot, from Jerusalem to Cana of 
Galilee, a distance of about seventy miles due 
north, and this well is nearly half way on the 
route, "for He must needs go through Samaria." 
The well is now dry, though " deep " — of mas- 
sive vaulted construction over a shaft sunk 
in the solid rock. There is, no doubt, wa- 
ter within it at other seasons, but the whole 
country is now parched with drought. Maun- 
drell measured the depth as a hundred and five 
feet, fifteen of which, early in the year, he 
found to be water, with a diameter of three 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



473 



yards ; and this practical account, like most 
others of the same sober authority, has never 
been impugned or improved upon. One feels 
thankful that here at least there is no conflic- 
ting opinion and no opposing testimony ; even. 
Dr. Robinson says, " I am not aware of any- 
thing in the nature of the case that goes to 
contradict the common tradition/' to which this 
learned traveller is usually a mortal enemy ; he 
sees "much, on the contrary, to confirm the be- 
lief," as to which Jew and Samaritan, Christian 
and Mohammadan are for once unanimous. 

No longer on this mountain nor yet at J eru- 
salem — no longer a " lo here " or a " lo there " 
for a fit temple to worship the Father who is 
a Spirit, in spirit and in truth — no longer a 
house made with hands to limit the presence 
of the God whom " the heaven and the heaven 
of heavens cannot contain." Resting here in 
the shadow of Gerizim, I dreamed a Utopian 
dream, that all the kings and commonwealths 
of Christendom were combined together in uni- 
ty of spirit and the bond of peace to rear over 
this spring and upon this rock the noblest and 
loftiest temple ever made with hands, wherein 
"all people, nations, and language" might bow 



474 



NOZRANI IN 



bow down and worship the God and Father of us 
all through the "one Mediator between God and 
man, the man Jesus Christ" — "the second man, 
the Lord from heaven. 5 ' Would this be to vio- 
late the sacred and spiritual precept once pro- 
nounced on the brink of this well? Surely not. 
Though every pilgrim of every land may even 
now worship in this place, "leaning on his staff," 
in a glorious temple whose floor is the earth 
of Palestine, and whose roof is the canopy of 
heaven, 

c; Bend his knee upon the sod, 
And sue in forma pauperis to God." 

The house built with hands, unable to contain 
the incomprehensible Godhead, may yet be ac- 
cepted as an outward sign and pledge of the 
fellowship and union required of man by the 
"Author of peace and Lover of concord." As 
it is, we look in vain for the token by which 
we were to know each other as Christ's disci- 
ples — we live and die and "make no sign," 
because we have brought down Charity from 
her throne of divine right, to set up ugly calves 
of our own casting, from Dan even unto Beer- 
sheba. The Greeks of old had a temple over 
whose threshold was sculptured the letter E, 



EGYPT AND SYEIA. 



475 



u Thou Abt," which all saw and pronounced 
as they approached the shrine of the god. 
Here w^as the first broad principle of religion 
established — "He that cometh to God must 
believe that He is*" Why should not we have 
a Catholic temple over the well of Jacobs or 
elsewhere, in whose liturgical service all who 
worship the Father by the Son, might for once 
agree and join, worshipping in unity of spirit, 
though not of opinion, forgetting where we 
sometimes differ in speculation, to remember 
where we always agree in principle ? 

It is believed^ both in Egypt and Syria, that 
England mighty during the late struggle be- 
tween the Sultan and his powerful Basha, have 
been willingly acknowledged by both as pro- 
tectress of Palestine. Raised to the rank of an 
independent state, it w^ould have reflected glory, 
in return for safety, on the imperial diadem of 
Britain. 

Joseph's tomb, a quarter of a mile north of 
the well, is now covered by a little Mohamma- 
clan mosque, upon the walls of which are num- 
berless inscriptions in Hebrew and Arabic, with 



* Hebrews xi. 6. 



476 



NOZRANI IN 



a few in European characters ; for the disciples 
of the Law, the Gospel, and the Koran all reve- 
rence alike the sepulchre of him whose history, 
from the cradle to the tomb, is graven in the 
memories of half the inhabitants of this earthly 
planet. Leaving Matteo and the mookero with 
the horses in the shade of the tomb, I climb the 
steep and scorching flank of Gerizim alone, 
seeing but one human being on the mountain, 
a shepherd at some distance, who makes off as 
I look at him through a spy-glass, which he 
probably takes for a blunderbuss. Near the top 
of the hill, up got a covey of partridges, and I 
felt half ashamed of the impulse which induced 
me to fire a shot, which echoed to J acob's well. 
On the summit are immense ruins of massive 
stone, a fortress, of whose history little is 
known ; the foundations probably those of the 
ancient temple of the Samaritans, a remnant of 
whom still dwell in the valley below, with the 
Pentateuch in the old character*, and still 
sacrificing their Passover on this mountain. 

* Some suppose our present Hebrew square letters to 
have been borrowed, or, at least, modified, from the Cbal- 
dee during the captivity, and the Samaritan characters to 
be the original. It seems likely that the variation may be 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



477 



The most imposing and magnificent ceremo- 
nial on record is that which was enacted under 
Joshua, on the opposite slopes of Grerizim and 
Ebal, when, in accordance with the injunction 
of the great Law-giver, the twelve tribes were 
marshalled in array, six on this mountain and 
six on that, with the ark of God in the valley, 
when the myriads of Israel chanted the alter- 
nate response to the blessing and the curse on 
obedience and rebellion. What a glorious sight 
and sound it must have been, to see and hear 
such a nation in such a scene, uttering the so- 
lemn syllables of the Hebrew Amen, rolling 
like thunder through these hills and valleys I 
It was an idea as grandly conceived as glori- 
ously accomplished*. Here, too, from the top 
of Gerizim, was pronounced to the "men of 
Shechem" Jotham's exquisite apologue, the 
earliest on record, of "the trees who went 
forth to anoint a king j." In the cool shade of 
the ruin and the fresh breeze of the mountain, 

ascribed to causes similar to those which have changed the 
English black letter into the Roman text. The identical 
origin of the Hebrew and Samaritan writing is as clear as 
in the case of the German and Italian type. 

* Deuteronomy ii, 29 ; xxvii. 12 ; Joshua viii. 33* 

t Judges ix. 7. 



478 



kozkani m 



fragrant with shrubs and wild flowers, I read 
these chapters, and once more the fourth of 
John, with such a wide view over the hills and 
plains of Judsea and Samaria as expanded the 
spirit to look upon. But we must descend the 
mountain, and for the rest of our journey 
travel more and talk less. The hill of Sebaste 
or Samaria, now called Sebustieh, a corruption 
of the Greek for Augustus, is rounded and 
beautiful, cultivated to the top, and the neigh- 
bouring country quite a paradise of fertility. 
The village lies to the left of the horse track, 
at a considerable elevation, which we reach by 
a steep path, rivetted by the view of the ruined 
church of St. J ohn the Baptist, the chancel of 
which rises so nobly over the precipice before 
us. The church was built and dedicated by 
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem to their 
patron saint, probably upon the foundation of 
an earlier edifice. The architecture is of a 
mixed order, rounded and pointed with oriental 
capitals. The length must have been nearly 
two hundred feet, by about eighty in extreme 
breadth. As usual, the crescent has supplanted 
the cross, but only for a time. The people of 
the village bear a very bad character, and 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



479 



Matteo was in a desperate fidget to get away, 
making small allowance for his master's ill- 
timed lingering admiration for the noble site of 
the capital of the ten tribes, or the rows of 
columns and sculptured stones that alone re- 
main as memorials of its ancient magnificence. 

Half a dozen miles more, and we lose the 
plain of Samaria^ with its fields and vineyards 
and figs and olives^ to climb wild hills and 
traverse a solitary uninhabited district, which 
brings us to the rocky ridge of Mount Gilboa, 
where m the battle went sore against Saul, and 
the archers hit him, and he was sore wounded 
of the archers*." Here died Saul and his sons 
and his armour-bearer and the men of Israel : 
and the Philistines "fastened his body to the 
wall of Bethshan," or Scythopolis, within the 
ruins of which we pass the night, about five 
miles from the Jordan and twenty from Se- 
baste, — a watchful and anxious night among 
a party of Bedouin, who I this time really 
expected would do us some bodily mischief, 
which, however^ luckily turned out to be no- 
thing worse than bodily fear. We made friends 



* 1 Samuel xxxi. 3 % 



480 



KOZEANI IN 



with their leader by eating and drinking, and 
presenting him with the best baksheesh of 
powder and knives that the bags could afford, 
w atching out the darkness in a little walled in- 
closure, where our heads could not well be cut off 
without a few minutes' notice. It was always 
a question whether, in extremis, it would have 
been right or expedient to resist these ma- 
rauders to the death; and as I never exactly 
made up my mind, they would probably have 
settled the matter summarily according to their 
own creed and code. Armed as we were, it 
would have been easy to shed blood in defence 
of our property; but it could scarcely have 
saved our lives, and therefore would have been 
worse than useless. We happily, and most 
thankfully be it acknowledged, never made 
any use of our weapons beyond that of a 
fierce display, out-swaggering half the ruffians 
w r e met. 

Matteo's last master, an artist, was robbed 
and left naked under an old bridge at Beth- 
shan, and the doughty Sancho has never for- 
gotten or forgiven the catastrophe, in which he 
fully shared. 

While riding over the stony dreary hills be- 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



481 



tween our last halt and the khan on the Jordan, 
I was attracted by a strangely green oasis at a 
distance, and made up to it, with the hope of 
a shady siesta; taking little notice of a few 
bones lying near the thicket, and about to 
throw myself under a tree, lo and behold two 
scorpions made their amiable sidleing exit from 
a hole, upon which I speedily remounted and 
left them in full possession of the field ; Matteo 
then coming up, rebuked my ignorance for not 
perceiving at once that a swampy jungle, the 
retreat of all the unclean beasts and reptiles of 
the neighbourhood, was not a fit place for 
repose. From a high eminence we now look 
down upon the Jordan and the 

SEA OF GALILEE, 

or Lake of Genezareth, towards which we de- 
scend rapidly by the most rugged of no roads, 
halting at the solid Saracenic bridge over the 
Jordan, close to a large khan, which we find 
full of a company of mounted natives on their 
way to Damascus across the river. Here we 
are in the region of Decapolis beyond Jordan, 
though we only cross it for crossing's sake, rc~ 

2 i 



482 



NOZRANI IN 



turning on this side to pursue our way by its 
refreshing solitary stream some seven or eight 
miles further, till we issue in full presence of 
the broad, bright, and placid surface of the 
lake, for ever honoured in Sacred Writ as the 
scene frequented and loved by the Lord. The 
scenery is altogether of a gentle character — 
nothing frowning, rugged, or terrific, as in 
that of the Dead Sea; the limestone hills by 
which it is girt are of a rounded outline, now 
brown and barren from the burning heat of 
August, but doubtless beautifully verdant after 
the rains of autumn and winter. The length 
is about thirteen or fourteen miles, by a breadth 
averaging perhaps half as much. 

Three days we pass with head quarters at 
the very hot sulphureous baths of Tiberias, a 
building lately completed with some elegance 
by Ibraheem Basha, near the old Roman estab- 
lishment, about a mile south of the town, and 
close upon the shingly shore of the clear, rip- 
pling, and weedless lake, in which I bathe, and 
round which I wander alone with intense in- 
terest and delight. A single boat under sail, 
with a solitary fisherman, is gliding slowly near 
the opposite coast ; and how many associations 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



483 



does not that white canvas recal, of the boat, 
u to ttXolov*" that was sacred to His service— 
"the ship/' of which we read again and again— 
"they left the ship and followed Him"— "the 
ship was covered with the waves" — "imme- 
diately the ship was at land" — "cast the net 
on the right side of the ship!" The recollections 
of these and many more throng upon the mind 
like the impressions of a dream, as the eyes 
follow the course of that lonely little bark. 
The people at the bath-house offer us some 
fish,, which in the evening we broil upon a fire 
kindled on the shore, where I spend half the 
night under the rays of the moon lighting up 
the silvery lake in silent and solemn beauty. 

The town of Tiberias, originally founded by 
Herod Antipas, is miserable ; the battlemented 
walls shivered, and half the houses in ruins 
from the shock of the terrible earthquake six 
years ago, which destroyed many thousands of 
lives in Palestine, especially at Safed, the other 

* The use of the Greek article seems to express that 
there was one boat specially employed by Christ in his 
excursions on this favourite lake — "ship" gives an erro- 
neous notion of the Genezareth navigation. But why did 
Raphael, in his glorious cartoons, put the Apostles into 
skiffs that could not float them without a miracle ? 

2 I 2 



484 



NOZBANI IN 



sacred city of the Jews, about twelve miles 
to the north, which was totally overthrown, 
burying more than half its inhabitants under 
their own roofs. Tiberias, named after the 
emperor Tiberius*, is still principally occupied 
by Jews of the most abject and squalid appear- 
ance, from Poland, Germany, and Portugal, 
yet clinging to the once far-famed city of the 
Rabbins and the Talmud, the cradle of their 
later learning. The town is close upon the 
water and was formerly strongly fortified, 
though now shattered and defenceless. The 
population of this once celebrated school of 
Hebrew learning has dwindled, under succes- 
sive calamities, to less than two thousand souls : 
but some lingering traces of Rabbinical lore 
are said still to exist within the walls that 
cradled the Mishnah and Gemara. No ruins 
are seen worth much description, the principal 
fragments being a number of granite columns, 

* " Irnperante Augusto natus est Christus, imperante 
Tiberio crucifixus." 

" The eagle, in the hand of Tiberius, the third of the 
Caesars, outdid all its achievements, both past and future, 
by becoming the instrument of that mighty and mysterious 
act of satisfaction made to the Divine justice in the cruci- 
fixion of our Lord." — Carey. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



485 



half in and half out of the lake, on the way 
from the baths to the town. 

The names of Capernaum and Chorazin of 
course rise strongly to the memory of a wan- 
derer on this beach; but nothing seems yet 
absolutely determined as to their respective 
sites. Capernaum, once exalted so high by the 
presence and the works of the Messiah, is now 
brought so low, that different travellers dispute 
on which heap of stones to inscribe its epitaph. 
Chorazin seems never to have been well known; 
some have supposed the name to be a Greek 
compound, %copa %iv 3 or " country of Zin;' 5 but 
about these questions it is not worth while for 
a passing pilgrim to trouble himself ; sufficient 
for him that this is the lake, and these the hills, 
once the scene of so many chapters in the life 
of the Redeemer. 

A ride of about twelve miles, sometimes close 
by the water's edge, and sometimes on the 
stony and difficult path overhanging its surface, 
brings us to the upper end, where the narrow, 
reedy, and sluggish Jordan flows into the Sea 
of Genezareth from another smaller, swampy 
lake, now called Huleh, formerly Merom, some 
ten miles off to the north. 



486 



NOZRANI m 



The level of the Sea of Galilee below the 
Mediterranean is now ascertained by the Ord- 
nance survey to be nearly three hundred and 
thirty feet; still a thousand feet higher than 
that of the Dead Sea, from which it is distant 
less than a geographical degree; which gives 
a very rapid descent for the channel of the 
river. 

Leaving Tiberias, we climb the steep stony 
heights leading to Hatteen, two hours' march 
to the north-west, where the crusading chivalry 
suffered its fearful and final overthrow by the 
host of the Sultan Saladin in the twelfth cen- 
tury. Changing our course again to the south- 
ward, the day's ride brings us to the summit of 
the beautifully rounded and wooded hill of 
Tabor, rising more than a thousand feet above 
the wide fertile plain of Esdraelon, its broad 
table-top covered with massive ruins, and com- 
manding from its isolated elevation one of the 
most beautiful prospects, not only in Palestine 
but in the world. The lake of Galilee is in 
great measure shut out by the intervening 
heights ; but beyond it and the Jordan rise the 
"high hills" of Basan and Gilead, while far 
to the north soar the tremendous summits of 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



487 



Lebanon, the loftiest of which beyond Beyrout 
reach an elevation of eleven thousand feet above 
the Mediterranean. Beneath us to the west is 
the round valley of Nazareth, and beyond, over 
the dry channel of the brook Kishon, rises the 
bluff headland of Carmel overhanging the sea, 
only glimpses of which are caught through 
the wooded hills that shut out the bay of the 
much-besieged Acre. Mount Tabor is marked 
by tradition as the scene of the Transfiguration, 
a mystery which the monks of Narareth com- 
memorate by the celebration of annual masses 
on the summit, which like that of Carmel, is 
the yearly resort of a multitude of pilgrims, 
both Latin and Greek. Passing the night on 
the mountain, with a scanty supply of bread 
and water, we wind our way down next morn- 
ing through the oak forests with which its 
flanks are clothed, while the scattered acorns 
and munching swine remind one of the prodigal 
son. When J osephus calls Tabor four miles 
high (about the height of the Himaleyahs) we 
are bound to suppose he meant that the zig-zag 
path he pursued measured something approach- 
ing to such an estimate, which now however 
must be reduced one half. Its summit may no 



488 



NOZRAXl IN 



doubt have been considerably lowered by the 
labour of man, or by the convulsions of Xature, 
but one can scarcely acquit the Jewish his- 
torian of at least an indiscreet desire to astonish 
his Roman readers by imaginary marvels in his 
native land, It was one way among others of 
flattering his Imperial Patron, the conqueror of 
Judaea. On this mountain Barak at the com- 
mand of Deborah drew up an army of ten 
thousand men, and then went down with his 
host to discomfit Sisera and his nine hundred 
chariots of iron, which fled and fell before the 
edge of the sword even unto Harosheth of the 
Gentiles, some twenty miles north, near the 
waters of Merom. During; this flight it was 
that the wife of Heber the Kenite consummated 
the deed of inhospitable heroism, which staggers 
the strength of modern sympathy and admira- 
tion, (J udges iv.) Two hours' march now brings 
us within the elliptic curve of round hills, in one 
of the foci of which stands, with its white walls 
glancing in the sun, the stone-built, flat-roofed 
town of sacred 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



489 



NAZARETH, 

where we proceed at once to the strong gates 
of the great Latin Convent and meet with a 
civil reception from the monks, with whom I 
shortly after enter the richly decorated church 
and listen to the service, chanted in full choir 
with a pealing organ. It was from this church, 
according to the legend, that the house of " our 
Lady of Loretto" took its miraculous flight to 
the Adriatic. It is not, however, to listen to 
legends that we come hither, but to wander on 
the hills and look down on the valley, where 
we know of a truth that " Jesus of Nazareth" 
dwelt in childhood, subject unto his parents — 
where "He increased in wisdom and in stature, 
and in favour with God and man." From this 
remote valley it was that he went up with his 
parents to Jerusalem, where they sought him 
sorrowing, and found him with the doctors of 
the Temple, hearing them and asking them 
questions. And here it was too that the future 
Virgin mother was first hailed by the angel as 
" blessed among women," keeping all these say- 



490 



NOZRANI IN 



ings and pondering them in her heart, watching 
the growing stature and expanding wisdom of 
the unearthly boy, "with a soul that magnified 
the Lord, and a spirit that rejoiced in God her 
Saviour." 

Nathaniel said to Philip, "Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth?" Yet here Jesus 
dwelt, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
by the prophets : " He shall be called a Naza- 
rene." Why Nathaniel should speak or think 
with contempt of Nazareth is not apparent ; the 
name itself was one of high honour and sanctity, 
derived from Nazar, to consecrate or crown, and 
the locality was eminently fertile and beautiful, 
though apparently peopled in our Lord's time 
by a hardened and unteachable mob. Origen 
read " Svvarac re a<ya6ov" can any good thing, 
as an assertion, not an interrogation, on the 
part of Nathaniel, as if he had said, " Some 
good thing may come out of Nazareth," in 
opposition to the prejudice of the Jews that no 
prophet could come out of Galilee : " Search 
and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" 
— a saying notoriously false, as some of the 
most remarkable prophets were of Galilee, 
Jonah among the number. However, the 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



491 



name of Nazarene became a name of reproach, 
and the heathen orator Tertullus can find no 
more railing accusation against the Apostle 
Paul, no invective more bitter, than that of "a 
pestilent fellow," "a ringleader of the sect of 
the NazarenesV As it was then, so it is now, 
and Nozrdni, or Nuzrdni, for "Nazarene," is 
still the modern Syriac term of contemptuous 
distinction by which a Mooslim designates the 
Christian, travelling as a stranger in the land 
which witnessed the birth, and life, and death, 
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
"whom every tongue should confess," and "at 
whose name every knee should bow" to the 
glory of God the Father. 

After a long stroll among the hills of Naza- 
reth, till the sun begins to touch the heights of 
Carmel and shed its setting glory upon the Sea 
of Acre, I return, mindful of the monk's advice, 
to the safe and hospitable convent, where after 
wandering alone about its silent courts and 
massive vaulted galleries, I found my way to 
what we should call the common or combina- 
tion-room of the fathers, then and there sociably 



* Acts xxiv. 5. 



492 



NOZEANI IN 



assembled, and, of course, was about to retreat 
with a sincere apology for intrusion, when the 
Superior very kindly invited me to stay, and 
we kept up a conversation for some time, "tant 
bien que mal," in Latinized Italian or Italian- 
ized Latin, with the occasional but sparing 
philippic of a petit verre of the liqueur called 
rosolio. At a given moment, all the brown- 
robed, cord-girt, taciturn brethren rose from 
their bench round the wall, and, making obei- 
sance with folded arms to the Principal, de- 
parted in single file and melancholy procession; 
at least to me it seemed melancholy, because 
they did not appear endued either with the 
keen intellect or the lofty enthusiasm that can 
alone create its own resources, apart from the 
ordinary enjoyments of ordinary men; most of 
them are Spanish or Italian, probably not 
chosen for this isolated solitude as any reward 
of merit. When these heavy gregarii milites 
had marched off, we had a smaller and more 
agreeable party for coffee; and in return for an 
old budget of European news, the fathers showed 
me the convent, and patiently answered ques- 
tions as to the localities and statistics of Naza- 
reth. I asked them whether they were not in 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



493 



danger of their lives during the frequent politi- 
cal troubles of this distracted land, cut off from 
all civilized and Christian resources. The reply 
smacked of more wisdom than the query: "that 
their lives were in the hand of God ; that they 
had the resource of prayer and the conviction 
of duty under the prospect of the various perils 
with which they were surrounded, and which 
they must meet as soldiers at their post, 
whether the danger came in the shape of pesti- 
lence, earthquake, or fire and sword." From 
the two former they have of late years suffered 
considerably. Their creed is not at all, how- 
ever, that of neglecting ordinary and appointed 
means of safety in the time of trial ; they shut 
their gates both against the deadly plague and 
the plundering Arab ; and, within such a for- 
tress, they have not much to fear from a puny 
invader; much safer in all respects than our 
little English mission at Jerusalem, scattered 
any how through the city without any rallying 
point or stronghold, and forty miles from the 
sea. The population of Nazareth they estimate 
at between three and four thousand souls, the 
native Christians of the different communions 
collectively greatly outnumbering the Moham- 



494 



N0ZKA1S3I IK 



madans. They are usually quiet and indus- 
trious, tilling and living upon the produce of a 
rich and beautiful district. Here, as elsewhere 
throughout Palestine, the votaries of the Greek 
or Eastern church under the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, far exceed those of the Latin or 
Western under the Pope of Rome. The Occi- 
dentals have, however, considerably recruited 
their ranks by enrolling a body of quasi-Ro- 
manists, called Greek Catholics, acknowledging 
the "filioque" of the Mcene Creed and the 
Papal Supremacy; but, like their brethren the 
Greeks, maintaining the right of the laity to 
receive The Cup, and that of the clergy to 
marry a wife*. In speaking of Latins and 



* As the reader may be a good Christian and yet have 
read little ecclesiastical history, it will not be impertinent 
to remind him if he knows, or inform him if he does not, 
that the great schism of the Eastern and Western 
churches in the ninth century, arose from the controversy 
as to the procession of the third Person* in the Holy 
Trinity, the Greek church under the Patriarch Photius 
refusing to acknowledge the Latin clause Filioque, which 
we still read in the Nicene Creed through the English 
words " and the Son." We would fain try to think or 
hope that such a transcendental spiritual point was not 
irreverently made a doctrinal peg upon which ambitious 
churchmen were glad to hang their political projects. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA, 



495 



Greeks in Syria, it must be understood that 
they all, with the exception of a few monks 
and church dignitaries, are native Arabs, with 
the liturgy in their own tongue. 

Of Jews there appear to be none in Nazareth, 
and we can well appreciate the influence which 
repels from this valley the mysterious remnant 
of the peculiar people, whose number through- 
out the land of their fathers, once "the glory of 
all lands," is estimated by the best authorities 
at no more than twelve or thirteen thousand 
souls. Among other statistical truths, the 
monks take care to remind an Englishman 
that he is looked upon as an excommunicated 
heretic, not only by Greeks, Latins, Armenians, 
and Copts, but hitherto even by the Turkish 
government, whose laws recognize the existence 
of no church under the name of Protestant. 
The establishment of the Anglican Bishopric 
is on this score caviare to all the convents. 
Buonaparte, they tell us, visited Nazareth and 
the monastery, after defeating the Turks in a 
pitched and bloody battle on the plain of Es- 
draelon, in 1799. 

The prospect from the heights that surround 
the valley is very extensive and interesting, 



496 



NOZRANI IN 



with a foreground of figs, olives, and prickly 
pears, and a distant view of Carrnel and its 
Convent of Elijah, jutting out into the noble 
Bay of Ptolemais or Acre, bounded by the 
horizon, to behold which the prophet com- 
manded his servant to go up seven times, and 
at the seventh there arose "a little cloud out of 
the sea like a man's hand." The same appear- 
ance still portends a " heaven black with clouds, 
and wind and great rain." 

The monks point to an overhanging precipice 
at one end of the town as that to which the 
men of Nazareth led Jesus forth, when they 
rushed in fury from the synagogue, to cast 
Him down headlong from "the brow of the 
hill whereon their city was built*." 

" He came to Nazareth, where He had been 
brought up, and as his custom was, He went 
into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and 
stood up for to read/' With what majestic 
power has the Evangelist, in the simplicity of a 
few words, brought that vivid scene of the syn- 
agogue before the eyes, and home to the heart, 
of the countless myriads for whom he wrote, 



* Luke iv. 29. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



497 



that they might "know the certainty of those 
things " wherein they had been instructed ! 
We look and listen with senses riveted upon 
the "Teacher come from God," as they deliver 
to him the Book of the prophet Esaias: had 
we not been told where he opened it, or what 
he found written, or what he said, how we 
might have lamented the irreparable loss ! But 
we are told, we do know upon what truth of 
Holy Writ it pleased the Teacher sent from 
God to lay his finger, in presence of the people 
assembled in the house of prayer. The first 
words uttered within those walls are a declara- 
tion from Himself, that the Saviour of the world 
was anointed by the spirit of the Lord to preach 
the Gospel to the poor*. 

Devout then should be our wish, and deter- 
mined our effort, to recover and maintain for 
the National " House of Prayer 99 in our own 
land, its once proud but now lost title of the 
"Poor Man's Church ! " How ought we, when 
gathered together in the divine name and pre- 
sence, to shrink from His rebuke on those who 
love the chief seats in the synagogue, "having 



* Luke iv. 18. 

2 K 



498 



NOZRANI IN 



the faith of our Lord J esus Christ with respect 
of persons/' installing him of the " gold ring and 
goodly apparel " in a good place, and saying to 
the poor man with thin raiment, scanty food and 
rheumatic bones, " Stand thou there in the cold, 
or sit thou here in the damp, under the shadow 
of the high-boarded box of thy betters, with 
senses blunted by toil, privation, and exposure, 
perchance to gather, as the vague sound of dis- 
tant melody, a few words of the Gospel first 
preached to thee for the special healing, conso- 
ling, recovery, and liberty of thy wounded and 
broken spirit." 

Thank God, we have still a leaven of nianly 
Christian devotion working in the world's lump 
of vexatious vanity, and we may yet hope to 
see national Worship, in spirit and in truth, 
within the walls of our churches, where, upon 
one broad level, rich and poor, old and young, 
learned and simple, may bow down as breth- 
ren in the presence of the God and Father 
of us all. Here might be a re-knitting of 
that bond of union which is the bond of 
strength in our social system, now bound by 
a rope of sand — here we might learn once 
more, each in his degree, the elements of 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



499 



Christian fellowship — sympathy and responsi- 
bility : sympathy with our neighbour afflicted 
or distressed^ and responsibility to our Maker 
for the talents entrusted to our charge — in two 
words, the " official tenure " of all property , 
whether of mind, body, or estate, again to be 
one day demanded according to its measure, 
much to whom much, little to whom little, the 
doctrine of " stewardship," the " Alpha and 
Omega," the beginning and the end of prac- 
tical Christianity realized in our lives as pro- 
fessed upon our lips. 

Gentle and patient reader! yet a few minutes 
and we part. — Be it known then that this 
little volume was first published with an idea 
of aiding in the restitution of a fine old 
English church to its true parochial purpose, 
the proper welcome within its walls of every 
class alike in Christian community of wor- 
ship. The second edition now printed for 
more general perusal (if haply for any perusal 
at all) has been, with apparent propriety, 
hitherto divested of the local and limited pecu- 
liarities of the first, and been made as far as 
the author could make it or attempt it, of more 

2k2 



500 



NOZKANI IN 



general interest and wider scope. But now 
towards the end of his task, grown familiar and 
fearless with the easy-tempered traveller who 
has journeyed thus far under his guidance, he has 
shaken off restraint, and laid aside the weary 
work of a twice-told tale ; tired of revising, re- 
trenching and inserting, adding a little here 
and subtracting a little there, to propitiate a 
reading public, who as far as these pages are 
concerned, may have only an ideal existence. 
Be that as it may, he has now no more cor- 
rections to make, no more redundancies to 
prune, no more notes " de omnibus " to scribble, 
no further part in short to play, no longer a 
somewhat fantastic wandering Effendee with 
silk-girt sabred waist and scarlet-clad shaven 
head, but simply and soberly an English clergy- 
man of the Church as established by law, 
anxious for its true and abiding welfare, careless 
of checking his professional tone and habitual 
thoughts, but zealous, he trusts, in his own 
humble rank to fulfil his duty as a faithful 
subaltern officer, holding commission from his 
God and Country to teach and preach, and 
strive to realize, at least in part, the Mes- 
sage of glad tidings for us all. In this cause 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



501 



were these well-meant sheets first begun, and 
with a declaration of the same spirit and in 
pursuance of the same purpose are they now 
brought to a close. 

But was Nozrani a clergyman them all this 
time, while rambling about with a canaille of 
Mussulman camel-drivers, barbarian Nile boat- 
men, and vagabond desert thieves? No — he 
was not, but he sees no reason, as far as the 
propriety of the thing goes, why he might not 
have been. He may be unhappy enough to 
differ on this point with the judicious and 
refined reader, but he cannot see why that 
which becomes an English Christian gentleman 
should be unbecoming an English Christian 
clergyman; and as to canaille, he has learnt from 
St. Peter on the house-top of Simon the tan- 
ner, to call no men canaille. His device, if he 
had one, whether at home or abroad, whether 
eastward or westward, whether layman or cler- 
gyman, should be 

" Homo sum— nihil humani a me alienum puto." 

He did not leave his own land to ramble 
without purpose or pursuit; but to spend a 
year under new professors, in the proper study 



502 



NOZEANI IN 



of mankind ; he has been, as he expected, taught 
a lesson or two, well worth the time and the 
money expended; he has learnt among other 
things what it is to be weary, hungry, and 
houseless, a practical lesson of experience and 
sympathy without which no man's education 
is complete. He has learnt moreover in every- 
day intercourse to seek and find elements of 
goodness and greatness in men of different 
ranks, different races and different creeds, " all 
made of one blood to dwell on the face of the 
earth " in the presence of the God who is " not 
far from every one of us." To travel is in 
short to climb a hill on the journey of life, to 
see beyond the horizon of one's own lowly 
path, to go up eager to look, and come down 
content to remember. To travel is to love and 
honour one's own country above all others, and 
prefer it as a home, but not be puffed out with 
the self-inflation that would fain pass private 
vanity for public patriotism, mouthing emptily 
about " envy of surrounding nations/' of end- 
less wealth, wisdom and power, when we are 
really, as the world thinks, struggling hard 
and nobly to emerge from distress, difficulty, 
and danger. 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



503 



But now, in this age of crisis, when the 
health and wealth of the land are corroded 
by famine, pauperism, and disaffection, now 
comes the trial soon to be called on, the question 
soon to be answered, is the Church of England 
as by law established, the Church of the People ? 
is she the Christian Instructress, the cherished 
friend, the wise counsellor, the strong pleader 
for the massed, suffering, degraded, and dan- 
gerous millions of this ancient kingdom? If 
she be or can be all this, who would not breathe 
the prayer, Esto perpetua ! 

It is that the Established Church may stand 
triumphant when arraigned at the bar of public 
opinion, that every true son would now urge 
her household, while yet there is time, to be up 
and be doing — to be found watching, not slum- 
bering in the hour of peril. 

Let the Writer then crave and gain permis- 
sion, in conclusion, to have his own way for a 
page or two, plunging at once into the deep sea 
of ecclesiastical polity, with the waters of which 
he has been occasionally splashing himself and 
his reader en route to Palestine. As to a few 
notions on practical matters, involving, one 
would think, neither danger nor difficulty, 



504 



NOZRANI IN 



concerning the arrangement of the edifice, and 
the distribution of its accustomed services, little 
difference of opinion need be apprehended. 

To clear the broad areas of our country 
churches from the clumsy encroachment of 
private and exclusive selfishness, would at least 
make room for the rightful occupants, would 
put an end to an unchristian anomaly, and oust 
much vulgar vanity from the last place proper 
for its mistaken and ridiculous exhibition ; but 
more must be done before the Liturgical ser- 
vices of our House can be made an acces- 
sible and intelligible reality of worship for the 
most important, most numerous, and most ne- 
glected class, in w^hose special behalf the 
Gospel was first preached, and the Church 
first founded. 

The length and infrequency of our congre- 
gational assemblings are both great hindrances 
to popular attendance ; the so-called Morning- 
prayer is an accumulation of three full and dis- 
tinct forms, involving repetitions and inconsis- 
tencies arising only from the accumulation — as 
in speaking of the beginning of the day, when 
the sun already culminates in the south ; and a 
vice versa contradiction in the afternoon, when 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



505 



the service, though short and single, and like all 
the others, eminently beautiful, is still not quite 
popular enough, not enough in it for the people 
to do or say, with too much " Church and State," 
too much grandiloquence of this world, for toil- 
worn dullards. Then the praying by proxy, 
the cold duo of clergyman and clerk, to and 
fro above and below, with an occasional over- 
whelming clatter from the children's gallery, is 
subversive of all devotion to those who have 
sense of time, tune, or tone. The psalms and 
lessons are selected, or rather unselected, with- 
out due reference to actual continuity, and the 
congruity of Christian ethics. The so-called 
Athanasian creed, though only an occasional, 
is still an unedifying composition, when enoun- 
ced ad populum, whatever it may be ad clerum* 
The sermon, moreover, which has totally super- 
seded the more useful but more difficult cate- 
chising, begins when people are physically and 
mentally weary, usually a theological essay, too 
often null and void to the popular ear, too 
rapid, too artificial, too ambitious, even though 
good in its way, undrugged with the ipecacuanha 
of pedantry or affectation — which, whether in 
fine reading or preaching, is fatal to the charity 



506 



NOZEANI IN 



and equanimity of all classes* — though good 
reading is a different thing, and takes more to 
the doing than constitutes easy spelling. These 
and a few other plain matters, connected with 
the warmth and ventilation of our churches, 
where people will not incur positive bodily 
injury for contingent spiritual benefit, might 
be easily better ordered. There are, however, 
other grievances we may fear more deeply seat- 
ed, or the Establishment, with all its ways and 
means in men and money, could never have 
been reduced to but half the population of the 
the kingdom, even as nominal members. 

Look at the parochial system, how admirable 
and complete in theory — a net-work, covering 

* Who has not heartily said Amen to the anathema of 
Cowper — 

" In man or woman, but far more in man, 
And most of all in man that ministers 
And serves the Altai', in my soul I loathe 
All affectation." 

Why should clerical pomposity be so much more offensive 
than any other ? Because a clergyman is a professed tea- 
cher of Christian philosophy, which is self-knowledge, and 
the least earthly among us, if his spirituality be anything 
better than " wind and confusion,'' knows that, like other 
men, if he had his desert, he would scarce " scape whip- 
ping." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



507 



every foot of English ground from Penzance to 
Berwick; in every mesh of this broad net, a 
national house called a church — venerable in 
association, beautiful in conception, consecrated 
and endowed for the worship of God, in faith and 
hope heavenward, in peace and good will earth- 
ward : to each of these churches is attached a 
staff of ecclesiastical officers, commissioned and 
empowered by the law of the land ; at the head 
of them a resident, educated, well-approved, 
independent Christian gentleman, removed alike 
from the temptations of wealth and poverty, at 
home alike in the palace or the cottage, a con- 
necting link between the high and low, always in 
his place when doing or attempting good, shew- 
ing in himself and his household practical obe- 
dience to the code fulfilled in the pandect of the 
prophet — " Cease to do evil, learn to do well, 
seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the 
fatherless, plead for the widow." 

Such is the machinery of the Church Estab- 
lishment, aided by forms of worship at least as 
simple, sublime and beautiful as were ever yet 
made a vehicle of approach for a people to their 
God — such at least is the machinery when in 
good working order, but an Ichabod cry far 



508 



NOZRANI IN 



and wide, proclaims that the wheels work 
ill — with rusty cogs, harsh creaking and rude 
jolting, though set in motion by men stronger 
in social connection and monied means than 
were ever before banded in ecclesiastical cor- 
poration. Is it religious indifference that 
accounts for church desertion — are we a people 
caring for none of these things ? Look at the 
Metropolis with near three hundred crowded 
dissenting chapels, look at every city in the 
kingdom with its scores or dozens, and well 
nigh every hamlet with its one or two, and let 
these answer the question, all of them arrayed 
in direct if not bitter opposition, in personal 
rather than doctrinal hostility, to an establish- 
ment supported by the Crown, the nobility, the 
gentry, and the law of the land ! We who are 
of it and in it, would fain believe and hope 
in the still vigorous vitality of the National 
Church, but there must be something rotten 
in its state to account for such a pass as this. 
One voice in the country must be listened to, 
that we may learn what to think, to do, and to 
expect; the voice of Public Opinion, the Vox 
Populi Vox Dei, i.e. a voice always right in the 
long run. This voice prophesying no smooth 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



509 



things, tells us that we clergy are generally- 
held as an exclusive caste, mingling little 
but with our equals and superiors in rank; 
beyond our own circle neither well under- 
standing nor well understood, lacking know- 
ledge of the world, though minding worldly 
things, bad teachers because badly taught, 
not the example of plain living and high 
thinking that beseems our theory, deficient 
in brotherly equality and unity among our- 
selves, not as elders with elders, (jn-peafivrepoi 
aw TrpeafivrepoLs) cordial and frank fellow 
labourers in the same stony field, worthy 
of hire and meed according to toil borne and 
work done, but distant and supercilious in pride 
of place, measuring each other not by the ex- 
tent of soil reclaimed, but the amount of pay 
obtained, as one of the old poets also aptly 
sings, 

<c Unde habeas quserit nemo sed oportet habere." 

The same public opinion speaks also to the 
venerable Bench of Bishops, though in their 
remote elevation it may be for a time by 
them unheard or unheeded — tells them, that 
though learned, amiable and valued in their 



510 



KOZEANI IK 



own high circle, that that circle is a small 
one — that beyond it, in the wide realm of the 
kingdom, they are little known and less loved, 
viewed gloomily by the multitude (bodily and 
spiritually destitute) as superior clergy of in- 
ordinate wealth and titled lordship, isolated, 
irremoveable and irresponsible in the exercise 
of authority; an arbitrary power opposed 
to the constitutional instincts of the country, 
and therefore sure to be bent or broken by 
resistance or collision. The land has rung with 
the cry true or false that 50,000/. of ecclesiasti- 
cal moneys have been spent upon an Episcopal 
Palace ; if this be true, why is it not explained ? 
if false, why not contradicted ? Let it be pro- 
claimed an idle rumour and we breathe again — 
let it be written as a fact unexplained, unde- 
fended, in the memory of impatient millions, 
and its commentary will run, 

" Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat." 

Ill fares it with the noble ship if the men at 
the helm be unsteady in a rude gale and heavy 
sea; but let us hope better things, — good pilot- 
ao-e, fair breezes, and a safe port. Let ecclesias- 
tical powers that be, propitiate the popular spirit 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



511 



of justice and fitness of things by a movement 
in the right direction, or indeed a perceptible 
movement any way as an index of life, rather 
than no onward movement at all, but a helpless 
swinging to and fro in every whistling wind of 
opinion. Let a disposition appear to devote 
Church resources in earnest to Church pur- 
poses, namely, her men and means to the real 
education of the people in spirit and under- 
standing, grappling in the fair field of truth 
and earnestness with the lurking and terrible 
agencies that are now in league under the sur- 
face of society, and beginning to heave beneath 
our feet; let the Church proclaim it her voca- 
tion to raise the lowest physically, morally, 
and intellectually, to the rank and level of 
Christian men ; let preposterous parishes of rank 
growth be divided and sub-divided for the work, 
and their revenues divided and sub-divided too, 
let the old and tried resources of parish churches, 
parish priests, parish deacons, with their ves- 
tries, wardens, and officers, be made available 
and proved at last exhaustible. Let the Laity 
hear and understand that they are, or should 
be, as much churchmen as the Clergy, and that 
all must work together for the general good, 



512 



NOZRANI IN 



with life-long judgment and sobriety, not 
merely the passing effervescence of spiritual 
busy-bodyism. Make every wheel turn and 
every rope pull, and then, if power be wanting, 
appeal to the country for a helping hand in its 
own behalf, but not till then. What would be 
said of the Great Western Railway, if twenty 
horse-power- were hooked to tug and pant at a 
drag for fifty, while mighty engines stood by in 
solemn range wasting their steam in empty air? 
And yet we need not look far to see something 
like this in our own Establishment, full of 
strength, but strength ill-applied, squandered, 
or unexerted. Better things are now expected 
and demanded — among others, that the Church 
labourer should be held worthy of his hire, and 
his hire measured to his work; that serving the 
Altar he should live by the Altar; that within 
the pale of Church heritage there should be 
more sufficiency and less superfluity, more bro- 
therhood and less lordship, more descending 
to men of low estate and less minding of high 
things ; all this, and more than this, those that 
live will live to see, unless — unless a Power 
higher than the highest shall have otherwise 
decreed, already putting forth the dread hand 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



513 



to write Mene Tekel over against an Altar 
from which His glory has departed. 

MH FENOITQ. 



Note. — As to the vocation of the Church for physical 
teaching, there is, perhaps, a half-formed notion commonly 
current, that clerical instruction has nothing to do with the 
bodily, but only with the spiritual welfare of the poor and 
ignorant. Till body and soul, however, be divorced, their 
interests must remain inseparable. To teach the higher 
doctrines of Christianity, the heavenly things of our nature, 
to people still strangers to the first elements of earthly 
decency, is more unreasonable than it would be to demon- 
strate Euclid to a savage tribe not counting beyond their 
fingers. We find in Scripture a very different value 
attached to the wants and claims of our bodily system. 
Under the Old Covenant we hear of bread from the sky to 
the hungry, water from the rock to the thirsty, clothes and 
shoes that waxed not old in the wilderness, legal provi- 
sions, under Divine sanction, that none should be cold and 
sleepless for want of the blanket pledged. We read in 
the new revelation of God's will and way to man, that 
water was changed to wine, to cheer his heart at a wedding 
feast, that multitudes were once and again filled with loaves 
of grain, simultaneously sown, reaped, ground, and baked 
by direct fiat of the Giver of all good — that the same 
Power was employed in mortal form to heal the sick, to 
strengthen the weak, to cleanse the leprous, and towel- 
girded to wash and wipe the feet of His followers. Who 
or what then are we, to undervalue or forget the bodily 
condition and improvement of those entrusted to our teach- 
ing ! Our labouring people in England are now, perhaps, 
the worst domestic managers in the world; their household 

2 L 



514 



NOZRANI IN 



economy has been crushed down by taxation and reduction 
till it almost ceases to be a household at all, — going to the 
baker for bedevilled bread, to "drunk on the premises" for 
drugged beer, and commanding no better cooked feast on 
a gala day than a piping-hot spongy loaf and a cinder- 
burnt flap of cow-beef. (See " Advice for the Million," price 
6d., among other things on the use of oatmeal) The root 
of this evil is, no doubt, pinching poverty, and it is against 
such poverty and consequent ignorance and improvidence 
that Christian ministers have to plead in behalf of physical, 
as the forerunner to spiritual improvement. Nothing 
would tend so much to improve the condition of society ? 
as that each of us in our sphere should scout the grovel- 
ling wickedness of keeping back the labourer's hire 
(James v. 4), recognizing the unchangeable law of God, 
that a day's toil, whether in town or country, by man or 
woman, is worth a day's decent living, and that we owe 
not a farthing less, whatever be the demand of hard- 
screwed competition. If we were all to act on the Duke of 
Wellington's principle of wanting nothing cheap, i.e. at less 
than its value, this would soon right the gallant ship now 
on her beam-ends, raising one side and lowering the other, 
to the safety and comfort of all. Alms-giving will never do 
it — it is a thoroughly rotten prop to bear upon ; a man who 
is a man, will never beg while he can live by digging. To 
the aged and helpless, support and care are due from 
society, not as alms but a reciprocal debt. It would have 
been well for the Church Establishment had she, by precept 
and example, in her pulpits and parishes, anticipated the 
Chartist text, — 

"A fair day's wages for a fair day's work." 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



515 



Reader ! farewell, and let us if possible part 
friends. It may be that many pages of trite 
moralities waded through or skipped over please 
thee not, but let the quarrel be with the manner 
rather than the matter, or it may concern thee 
more nearly than another. If an apology con- 
sistent with sincerity could propitiate, it should 
be made in all courtesy, but it would avail 
nothing — so if we are not congenial, let us bow 
adieu, each to wend on his own uncertain path 
to the same certain bourn, thinking no evil, with 
a world wide enough for both to journey home- 
ward without again meeting. 

But if, on the other hand, gentle Reader, 
thou thinkest in great measure as I think, and 
hast turned over these five hundred pages with 
indulgence and sympathy, then do I greet thee 
heartily, and could wish that we might meet 
again, not on paper, but in person. There 
were other scenes that I had hoped we should 
look upon together, but for the present, time 
and space compel Nozrani to bid thee farewell 
at Nazareth. 



P. S. The lingering Author having made 
his bow, returns for a few more last words, 

2 L 2 



516 



NOZRANI IN 



simply to say that, in deference to a request 
with which he is honoured by some of his 
friends, he has turned once and again to a 
packet of travel-stained crumpled notes, now in 
ink, now in pencil, with a view of deciphering 
the discouraging scribble, and continuing the 
journey northward in print ; partly however 
from idleness, partly from a better motive, he 
has given up the intention, 

Leaving Nazareth, we should with every 
step be leaving the scenery on which rests and 
will rest while the world endures, a halo of the 
light once shed upon these hills by the earthly 
presence of an unearthly nature. Thus far the 
spirit of the pilgrim has been to the Nazarene 
while traversing Syria, what the spirit of reli- 
gion is to the Christian while advancing through 
life — though not always appearing on the sur- 
face, still generally working beneath it ; though 
not always professed on the lip, still not often 
absent from the heart; though not always shewn 
in the conduct, still never lost to the con- 
science. Bethlehem, or J erusalem, or Nazareth, 
one or other, has been hitherto before us as a 
goal and beacon in sight; should we turn away 
and wander from them, the road would be blank, 



EGYPT AND SYRIA. 



517 



aimless, and cheerless, the vein of speculation 
gone, the spring of excitement broken. 

Let it suffice then, as a mark of deference for 
a friendly wish, to indicate in few words the 
northward and returning route, without increas- 
ing a volume already as thick as it should be. 

Three days, (the festival of Elias,) we spend 
among a gay host of Arab and Lebanon pil- 
grims, in the noble convent, the finest in Syria, 
crowning the jutting height of Carmel, (the 
fruitful field,) the flank now shaded with an 
oak forest, and the top clad with purple heather, 
commanding a wide sweep of the Bay of Acre, 
and the horizon of Elijah toward the sea ; from 
which when the fire from heaven had fallen, 
and the people cried " The Lord He is God — 
the Lord He is God," arose the " little cloud 
like a man's hand," and the sky grew "black 
with clouds and wind, and there was a great 
rain." 

A lay brother of the Monastery, once him- 
self a gunner, spoke with great professional 
interest, but no approval, moral or political, of 
the late bombardment of Acre by the British 
squadron. The broadside of the huge three- 
decker, (Princess Charlotte,) flashing and roaring 



518 



NOZRANI IN 



after dark, had strongly impressed the imagi- 
nation of the Carmelites. 

From Carinel, by the embattled walls o 
Acre, now shattered and ruined with heavy 
English shot, still lying grim among the rub- 
bish, we travel a day's march by smooth sea 
sand, or the rugged white precipice known 
as the " Tyrian Ladder," to what was once 
the proud city of Tyre, the island capital of 
Phoenicia, and the abode of Hiram, and the mo- 
ther of Carthage, and the besieged of Alexan- 
der, the old emporium of the world — now the 
fishing village of Soor 9 made " like the top of a 
rock, a place for the spreading of nets, in the 
midst of the sea." (Ezekiel.) 

From Tyre, by Sarepta, to Sidon, (twelve 
hours) now a considerable Turkish town, lately 
battered and bombarded by the Stopford squa- 
dron. 

From Sidon some thirty miles to the once chi- 
valrous now commercial Beyrouth in the midst of 
oliveyards, vineyards, and orchards, the fig, the 
mulberry, and the prickly pear, the latter form- 
ing a terrible chevaux defrise, but yielding deli- 
cious cooling fruit for breakfast, when gathered 
by iron hooks and gauntlet-covered hands be- 



EGYPT AND SYKIA. 



519 



fore the rising sun. Beyrout nestles snugly 
under the morning shadows of the snow-topped 
Lebanon, (the white mountain,) soaring 11,000 
feet above the open bay, upon which the blasts 
rush down and the swell rolls in to the peril of 
the anchored shipping, now riding proudly in 
two squadrons, under the flags of England and 
France, three-deckers, seventy-fours, and fri- 
gates, a goodly and gallant shew. Establish 
seven days' head quarters a mile out of the suf- 
focating town, not in but on a Robinson Crusoe 
style of house, in a garden of olives and figs by 
the rocky sea shore, with cool mattress on the 
roof, and the light ladder pulled up alongside, 
by night, safe from all marauders, biped or 
otherwise, with the glorious spangled sky to 
sleep under, till roused by the thunder of the 
morning ship-guns, bellowing among the crags 
of stupendous Lebanon, the highest now capped 
with golden summer snow from the upward 
streaming beams of the east. 

Excursions on horseback to the mountains 
and cedars, and the vast ruins of Balbek, the 
wondrous Corinthian temple of the Sun, with 
a wall of monoliths, or single stones, some 
measuring sixty feet in length. 



520 NOZKANI m EGYPT AND SYRIA. 

Excursions by sea to the fresh cool stream 
of the Lycus, the resort of the ships* boats 
with casks for filling water, guns for shooting 
woodcocks, and baskets of "sock" for pic-nic 
pleasure. 

Now conies the opportunity of best acknow- 
ledgment to Officers of our gallant naval service, 
for hospitality and courtesy to an unknown 
solitary traveller, suddenly emerging from the 
savage desert in most uncouth trim, to take his 
seat once more at the table of English gentle- 
men of the best school, with all the appliances 
and means of polished life, on board as proud 
and happy a frigate as ever floated with a 
noble crew, four years in commission, the In- 
constant, 36, Captain Mitchell. 

Lastly, by favor of Captain Ommanney, 
being allowed to swing a cot for a passage on 
board a Queen's ship, feeling once more on 
a true home footing, Old England's surest 
ground, with her deck below and her flag 
above, Reader, farewell, — 

" Dictoque Vale, Yale inquit et Echo ! " 



London: Harrison and Co., Printers, St. Martin's Lane. 



NEW WORKS 



In MISCELLANEOUS and GENERAL LITERATURE, 

PUBLISHED BY 

Messrs. LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, and LONGMANS, 
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 



CLASSIFIED INDEX. 



ACRICULTURE & RURAL AFFAiRS. 

Pages 

Bayldon on Valuing: Rents, etc. - 6 

Crocker's Land Surveying- - - - 9 
Johnson's Farmer's Encyclopaedia - - 15 
Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Agriculture - 18 
Self-Instruction for Farmers, etc. 18 
(Mrs.) Ladv'sCountry Companion 18 
Low's Breedsofthe'DomesticatedAnimals 19 
Elements of Agriculture - - 19 
„ On Landed Property - - - 19 
On the Domesticated Animals - 19 
Parnell on Roads ----- 24 
Stewart on Transfer of Landed Property 29 
Thomson on Fattening Cattle, etc. - 30 

ARTS, MANUFACTURES, AND 
ARCHITECTURE. 

Ball on the Manufacture of Tea - - 5 
Brande's Dictionary of Science, etc. - 7 
Budge's Miner's Guide 7 
Cartoons (The Prize) . - - - 8 
Cresy's Encycl. of Civil Engineering 
D'Agincourt's History of Art - 
Dresden Gallery - - - - - 
Eastlake on Oil Painting - 
Evans's Sugar Planter's Manual - 
Ferafusson on Beauty in the Arts 
Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture 
Haydon's Lectures on Painting & Design 
Holland's Manufactures in Metal - 
Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art - 
Loudon's Rural Architecture - - - 
Moseley's Engineering and Architecture 
Parnell on Roads - - - - - 
Porter's Manufacture of Silk - 

„ Porcelain & Glass 

Reid (Dr.) on Warming and Ventilating 25 
Rohner's Musical Composition - - 26 
Steam Engine (The) , by the Artisan Club 5 
Ure's Dictionary of Arts, etc. - - 31 
Wood on Railroads ----- 32 

BIOGRAPHY. 

Andersen's (H. C.) Autobiography 5 

Bell's Lives of the British Poets - - 17 

Collins's Life of Collins - - - - 8 

Dunham 's Early Writers of Britain - 17 

Lives of the British Dramatists 17 

Forster's Statesmen of th e Commonwealth ] 7 

LifeofJebb - 17 

Foss's Judges of England - - - 11 

Gleig's British Military Commanders - 17 

Grant (Mrs.) Memoir and Correspondence 12 

Humphreys's Black Prince - - - 14 

James's Life of the Black Prince - - 15 

Eminent Foreign Statesmen - 17 

Kindersley's De Bayard - - - - 15 

Leslie's Life of ('unstable - - - 16 

Mackintosh's Life of Sir T. More - - 20 

Maunder's Biographical Treasury - - 21 

lloscoe's Lives of Eminent British Lawyers 17 



Pages 



Rowton's British Poetesses 
Russell's Bedford Correspondence 

Shelley's Literary Men of Italy, etc. - 17 

Eminent French Writers 17 

Southey's Lives of the British Admirals - 17 

„ Life of Wesley - - - 29 

Life and Correspondence - 29 

Taylor's Loyola - 30 

Townsend's Twelve eminent Judges - 31 

Waterton's Autobiography and Essays 32 

BOOKS OF GENERAL UTILITY. 

Acton's (Eliza) Cookery Book - - 5 

Black's Treatise on Brewing - - - 6 

Cabinet Lawyer (The) 7 

Donovan's Domestic Economy - 17 

Foster's Hand-book of Literature - H 

Hints on Etiquette - 13 

Hudson's Executor's Guide 15 

On Making Wills - 15 

Loudon's Self Instruction - - - 18 

,, (Mrs.) Amateur Gardener - 18 

Maunder's Treasury of Knowledge - - 21 

,, Scientific and Literary Treasury 21 

,, Treasury of History - - 21 

Biographical Treasury - - 21 

Natural History - " - - 22 

Parkes's Domestic Duties - - 24 

Pocket and the Stud - 25 

Pycroft's Course of English Reading - 25 

,, Collegian's Guide - - (25 

Reader's Time Tables - - - - 25 
Rich's Companion to the Latin Dictionary 25 

Riddle's Eng.-Lat. and Lat. -Eng. Diet. - 26 

Robinson's Art of Curing, Pickling, etc. 26 

Art of Making British Wines, 26 

Rowton's Debater - - - 26 

Short Whist 27 

Suitor's Instructor (The) - - 29 

Thomson's Management of Sick Room - 30 
Interest Tables - - .30 

Webster's Encycl. of Domestic Economy 32 

Zumpt's Latin Grammar - - - - 32 

BOTANY AND GARDENING. 

Ball on the Cultivation of Tea 5 

Callcott's Scripture Herbal 8 

Conversations on Botany 8 

Drummond on Natural Systems - - 10 

Evans's Sugar Planter's Manua - - 11 

Henslow's Botany ----- 17 

Hoare On the Grape Vine on Open Walls 13 

On the R oots of Vines - 13 

Hooker's British Flora - - - - 13 

Guide to Kew Gardens - 13 

Lindley's Theory of Horticulture - - IS 

, , Orchard and Kitchen Garden - 18 
Introduction to Botany - -16 

Synopsis of British Flora - - 16 
Loudon's Hortus Britannicus - - .19 

,, Hortus Lignosus Londinensis - 19 

Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs 18 

Gardening- - 18 



London: Printed by 31. Mason, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row. 



g 



Pages 

Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plants - -18 
Suburban Gardener - - 19 

Self-Instruction for Gardeners IS 
,, (Mr.) Amateur Gardener - - IS 
Repton's Landscape Gardening, etc. - 25 
Rirers's Rose Amateuris Guide - -26 
Rogers's Vegetable Cultivator - - 26 

CHRONOLOCY. 

Blair s Chronological Tables - - - € 

Bosanquet's Chronology of Ezra, etc. - 6 

Bunsen's Ancient Egyp't 7 

Nicolass Chronology of History - -17 

Riddle's Ecclesiastical Chronology - - 26 

COMMERCE A N D MERCANTILE 
AFFAIRS. 

Banfield and Weld's Statistics - - 5 

Gray on Money ------ 32 

M'Cnlloch's D'ietionarr of Commerce - 20 

Reader's Time Tables* - - - - 25 

Steel's Shipmaster's Assistant - - - 29 

Thomson's Tables of Interest - - - 30 

Watford's Customs' Laws - - - 31 

CEOCRAPHY AND ATLASES. 

Butler's Ancient and Modem Geography 7 

Atlas of Modern Geography - 7 

Ancient Geography - 7 

General Geography - 7 

De Strzelecki's New South Wales - 9 

Ennan's Travels through Siberia - - 10 

Forster's Historical Geography of Arabia 11 

Hall's Large General Atlas - - 33 

M'CuUoch's Geographical Dictionary - 20 

Mitchell-'s Australian Expedition - - 22 

Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography - 23 

Parrot's Ascent of Mount Ararat - - 24 



HISTORY AND CRITICISM. 

Bell's History of Russia - - - - 
Blair's Chron. and Historical Tables 
Bloomfield's Translation of Thucydides - 

Edition of Thucydides 
Bnnsen's Ancient Egypt - 
Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul - 
Cooler's Maritime and Inland Discorerr 
Crowe's History of France - 
De Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empir< 

Italian Republics 
Dunham's History of Spain and Portugal 



Europe' in the Middle .Ages 

n Empiri 



,, History of Poland - - - 17 

Dnnlop's History of fiction - - 10 

E&stlake's History of Oil Painting - 30 

Eccleston's English Antiquities - - 10 

Foss's J udges of England - - 11 

Foster's European Literature - - - 11 

Fergus's United States of America - 17 

Gibbon's Roman Empire - - - - 32 

Grant (Mrs.) Memoir and Corespoucence 12 

Grattan's History of Netherlands - - 17 

Grimblot's William III. and Louis XIV. 12 

Harrison On the English Language - 13 

Hardon's Lectures on Pain tin gaud Design 33 

Historical Pictures of the Middle Ages - 13 

Humphreys's Black Prince - - - 14 

Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions - - 15 

Keightley's Outlines of History - - 37 

Kemble's Anglo-Saxons in England - 35 

Laing's Kings of Norway - - - 16 

Lindo's Jews of Spain and Portugal - . IS 

Macanlay's Essays - ... 19 

History of England - - 19 



:: 
-- 

'.: 
37 

History of the German Empire 17 
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 17 



Mackintosh's History of England - - 17 
Miscellaneonl Works - 20 
M'Culloch's Dictionary, Historical, Geo- 
graphical, and Statistical - - 2© 
Maunder's Treasury of History - - 21 
Milner's Church Historr - 22 
Moore's History of Ireland - 17 
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History - - 23 
Mare's Ancient Greece - - - 23 
Nieolas's Chronology of History - - 17 
Passages from Modem Historr - - 28 
Ranke's Historr of the Reformation - » 
-::i'* CcatrJvrt: tit Luii. :i:_ary 25 
Dictionaries - - - 36 

of 17 

tk Poetesses - - - 26 

Russell's Bedford Correspondence - 6 

Scott's Historr of Scotland - - 17 

Sedgwick's France - - - - - 2J 

Sinnett's Br«-aT S of History - - - 2S 

Souther's Doctor, etc. - 29 
Stebbing-'s Historr of the Christian Cknreh 17 

Church History - - 17 

Stephen's Essays 29 

Switzerland, Historr of - - - - 17 

Svdney Smith's Works - 28 

Tarlor"s LoTola - - 30 

Thirlwall's Historr of Greece - - 30 

Tooke's Histories of Prices - - 31 

Turner's Historr of England - - 31 

Weisford'sMitbridates - 32 

Zumpt's Latin Grammar - 32 

JUVENILE BCCKS. 

AmT Herbert ------ 5 

Callcott's Home among Strangers - - 8 
Gertrude -------12 

Gower's Scientific Phenomena - - 12 

Howitt's Bor's Coantrr Book - - - 14 

„ Children's Year - 14 

Laneton Parsooage ----- 16 

Mackintosh's Life of SirT. More - - 20 

On Chemistrr ----- 20 

On Natural Philosophr - - 20 

On Political Economy - - - 30 

On Vegetable Physiology - 21 

On Land and Water - " - - - 21 

Marryat'sMasterman Ready - - - 21 

„ Prirateer's-Man - - - 21 

„ Settlers in Canada - 21 

„ Mission: or, Scenes in Africa 21 
Passages from Modern History - -28 

Pr croft's Course of English Reading - 25 

T'welre Years Ago ----- 31 

MEDICINE. 

Bull's Hints to Mothers 



8 
10 
13 
16 
24 



Copland's Dictionary of Medicine 
Elliotson's Human Plrrsiology 
Holland's Medical Notes - * - 
Latham On Diseases of the Heart 
Pereira On Food and Diet 
Thomson On Food - 



V SCELLANEOwSi 

Barnes's Electoral Law of Belgium 

Cartoons (The Prize) 
Colton's 1 



De J aenisch On Chess Openings - 
De la Grariere s Last Naval War - 
De Morgan On Probabilities - 
De Strzelecki's New Sonth Wales - 
Dresden Gallery - - - - 
Dunlop's History of Fiction - 



9 
9 
9 

9 

10 
10 



to Messrs. LONGMAN and Co.'s CATALOGUE. 



Pages 

Field On Prison Discipline - - - 11 

Gardiner's Sights in Italy - - 11 

Gower's Scientific Phenomena - - 12 

Graham's English ----- 12 

Grant's Letters from the Mountains - 12 

Hooker's Kew Guide - 13 

Howitt's Rural Life of England ^ - 14 

Visits to Remarkable Places - 14 

„ Student Life of Germany - 14 

Rural and Social Life of Germany 14 

,, Colonisation aud Christianity - 14 
Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions - -15 
Loudon's (Mrs.) Lady's Country Companion 18 

Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays 19 
Mackintosh's 'Sir J.) Miscellaneous Works 20 

Maitland's Church in the Catacombs - 20 

Necker DeSaussure's on Education - 23 

Pascal's Miscellaneous Writings - - 24 

Plunkett On the Navy - 25 
Pycroft's Collegian's Guide - - -25 

„ Course of English Reading - 25 

Remembrance of Bonchurch - - - 25 

Rich's Companion to the Latin Dictionary 25 

Richter's Levana - - - - 26 

Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - - - 26 

Rohner's Musical Composition - - 26 

Rowton's Debater ----- 26 

Sandford's Parochialia - - - - 26 

Seaward 's Narrative of his Shipwreck - 27 

Southey's Common-Place Book - - 29 

„ Doctor, etc. - 29 

Suitor's Instructor (The) - - - 29 

Sydney Smith's Works - - - - 28 

Thomson on Food of Animals, etc. - - 30 

Walker's Chess Studies - - - - 32 

Welsford's Mithridates - - 32 

Willoughby's (Lady) Diary - - 32 

Zumpt's Latin Grammar - - - - 32 

NATURAL HISTORY IN GENERAL. 

Catlow's Popular Conchologv 8 

Doubleday's Butterflies and Moths - 10 

Gray and Mitchell's Ornithology - - 12 

„ Accipitres - - 12 

Kirby and Spence's Entomology - - 15 

Lee's Taxidermy 16 

it Elements of Natural History - - 16 

Maunder's Treasury of Natural History 22 

Stephens' British Beetles - - 29 

Swainson on the Study of Natural History 1/ 

, , Animals - 17 

Quadrupeds - - - - 1J 

,, Birds - - - - 17 

Animals in Menageries - 17 

Fish, Amphibia, and Reptiles 17 

Insects - 17 

,, Malacology - - - - 17 

Habits and Instincts - - 17 

,, Taxidermy - - - - 17 

Turton's Shells of the Britishlslands - 31. 

Waterton's Essays on Natural History - 32 

Westwood's Classification of Insects - 32 

NOVELS AND WORKS OF FICTION* 

Callcott's Home among Strangers - 
Dunlop's History of Fiction 
Hall's Midsummer Eve 
Lady Willoughby's Diary 
Landor's Fountain of Arethusa 
Madame De Malguet - 
Marryat's Masterman Ready 

,, Privateer's-Man 

„ Settlers in Canada - 

Mission ; or, Scenes in Africa 
Senior's Charles Vernon - 
Southey's Doctor, etc. - 



ONE VOLUME ENCYCLOPAEDIAS 
AND DICTIONARIES. 

Pages 

Blaine's, of Rural Sports 6 

Brande's, of Science, Literature, and Art 7 

Copland's, of Medicine 8 

Cresy's, of Civil Engineering 9 

Gwilt's, of Architecture - - 12 

Johnson's Farmer - - - - 15 

Loudon's, of Trees and Shrubs - - 18 

, , of Gardening - - - - 18 

,, of Agriculture - - - - 18 

of Plants - - - - - 18 

,, of Rural Architecture - - 18 

M'Culloeh's Geographical Dictionary - 20 

,, Dictionary of Commerce - 20 

Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography - 23 

Ure's Arts, Manufactures, and Mines - 31 

Webster's Domestic Economy - - 32 

POETRY AND THE DRAMA. 

Aikin's (Dr.) British Poets - 27 

Chalenor's Walter Gray 8 

Flowers and their Kindred Thoughts - 1 1 

Goldsmith's Poems, illustrated - - 12 

Gray's Elegy, illuminated - - - 12 

L. E. L.'s Poetical Works - - - 16 

Linwood's Anthologia Oxoniensis - - IS 

Macaulay's Lays of AncientRome - - 19 

Mackay's English Lakes - - . - 20 

Montgomery's Poetical Works - - 22 
Moore's Irish Melodies - - - 22 & 23 

Lalla Rookh - - - - 22 

,, Poetical Works - - - - 22 

Rowton's British Poetesses - - - 26 

Shakspeare, by Bowdler - - - 27 

Songs, Madrigals, and Sonnets - - 28 

Southey's Poetical Works - - - 29 

British Poets - - - - 27 

Thomson's Seasons, illustrated • - 30 

,, with Notes, by Dr. A.T.Thomson 30 

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND 
STATISTICS. 

Banfield and Weld's Statistics - - 5 

Barnes's Electoral Laws of Belgium - 5 

Gray's Lectures on Money - - - 12 
M'Culloch's Geographical, Statistical, and 

Historical Dictionary - - - 20 

M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce - 20 

„ Literature of Polit. Economy 20 

„ On Succession to Property - 20 

On Taxation and Funding - 20 

,, Statistics of the British Empire 20 
Marcet's Conversations on Polit. Economy 20 

Tooke's Histories of Prices - 31 

Twiss's (Dr.) View of Political Economy 31 

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL 
WORKS, ETC. 

Amy Herbert, edited by Rev. W. Sewell 5 

Barrett's Old Testament Criticisms - - 6 

Bloomfield's Greek Testament 6 

,, College and School ditto - 6 

,, Lexicon to Greek Testament fi 

Bunsen's Church of the Future 7 

Burder's Oriental Customs 7 

Burns's Christian Philosophy 7 

Christian Fragments 7 

Calleott's Scripture Herbal 8 

Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul - - 8 

Cooper's Sermons - - - - - 8 

Coqnerel's Christianity 9 

Dale's Domestic Liturgy - 9 

Dibdin's Sunday Library 9 



4 



CLASSIFIED INDEX. 



Discipline - - - - 
Ecclesiastes (illuminated) - 
Englishman's Hebrew Concordance 

,, Greek Concordance 

Etheridge's Acts and Epistles - - 
Forster's Historical GeogTaphy of Arabia 

Life of Bishop Jebb - 
From Oxford to Rome - - - - 
Gertrude, edited by the Rev. W. Sewell - 
Hook's (Dr.) Lectures on Passion Week 
Home's Introduction to the Scriptures - 

Compendium of ditto 
Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art 
Jebb's Correspondence with Knox - 
Translation of the Psalms - 
Kip's Christmas in Rome 
Knox's (Alexander) Remains - 
Laneton Parsonage - 
Letters to my Unknown Friends 
Maitland's Church in the Catacombs 
Margaret Percival - 
Maxims, etc. of the Saviour - - - - 
Milner's Church History - - - - 
Miracles of Our Saviour - 
Moore on the Power of the Soul - 
on the Use of the Body 
„ on Man and his Motives 
Morell's Philosophy of Religion 
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History - 
Neale's Closing Scene - 
Parables of Our Lord - 
Parkes's Domestic Duties - 
Pascal's Letters, by Pearce - 
Pitman's Sermons on the Psalms 
Ranke's Reformation - - - - 
Rest in the Church - - - - - 
Riddle's Letters from a Godfather - 
Sandford On Female Improvement - 

On Woman « 
's Parochialia - 
Sermon on the Mount (The) - 
Shunammite (The Good) - 
Sinclair's Journey of Life - 

,, Business of Life - - 
Sketches (The) - 
Smith's (G.) PerilousTimes - - t - 
Religion of Ancient Britain 
Sacred Annals - 
(J.) St. Paul's Shipwreck - 
Soames's Latin Church - - - - 
bolomon's Song (illuminated) - 
Southey's Life of Wesley - 
Stebbing's Christian Church - 

Reformation - 
Stephen's Church of Scotland 
Sydney Smith's Sermons - 
Tate's History of St. Paul 
Tayler's (Rev. C. B.) Margaret 

,, Lady Mary - 

Taylor's (Jeremy) Works - 
(Isaac) Loyola - 
Tomline's Introduction to the Bible 
Turner's Sacred History 
Twelve Years Ago - - - - - 
Walker's Elementa Liturgica - 
Wardlaw On the Socinian Controversy - 
Wilberforce's View of Christianity 
Willoughby's (Lady) Diary 
Wilson's Lands of the Bible - 
Wisdom of Johnson's Rambler, etc. 
Woodward's Sermons and Essays - 

RURAL SPORTS. 

Blaine's Dictionary of Sports - 
Ephemera on Angling • 
Hawbuck Grange - 



Pages 
9 



Pages 

Hawker's Instructions to Sportsmen - 13 
Jones's Norway Salmon Fisher - - 15 
Loudou's(Mrs.) Lady's Country Companion 18 
Pocket and the Stud - 25 

Stable Talk anu Table Talk - 29 



THE SCIENCES IN GENERAL, 
AND MATHEMATICS. 

Baker's Railway Engineering - 5 

Brande's Dictionary of Science, etc. - 7 

Brewster's Optics ----- 17 

Conversations on Mineralogy - - 8 
De la Beche on theGeology of Cornwall, etc. 9 

Donovan's Chemistry - - - - 17 

Farey on the Steam Engine - - - 11 

Fosbroke on the Arts of the Ancients - 17 

Gower's Scientific Phenomena - - 12 

Herschel's Natural Philosophy - - 17 

Astronomy - - 17 

Holland's Manufactures in Metal - - 17 

Humboldt's Cosmos - - - - 14 

Hunt's Researches on Light - - - 15 

Kater and Lardner's Mechanics - - 17 

Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - - 17 

, , Hydrostatics and Pneumatics • 17 

,, and Walker's Electricity - 17 

,, Arithmetic - - - - 17 

,, Geometry - - - 17 

Treatise on Heat - - 17 

Low's Chemistry - 19 
Marcet's Conversations on the Sciences 20,21 

Matteucci On Physical Phenomena - - 21 

Memoirs of the Geological Survey - - 22 

Moseley's Practical Mechanics - - 23 

Engineering and Architecture 23 

Owen's Comparative Anatomy - - 23 & 24 

Peschel's Physics ----- 24 
Phillips's Pal asozoicFossilsof Cornwall, etc. 

Mineralogy, by Prof. Miller - 24 

,, Treatise on Geology - - - 17 

Portlock's Geology of Londonderry - 25 

Powell's Natural Philosophy - - - 17 

Ritchie (Robert) on Railways - - 26 

Steam Engine (Ure), by the Artisan Club 5 

Thomson's School Chemistry - - - 30 



TRAVELS. 

Borrer's Campaign in Algeria - 
Costello's (Miss) North Wales 
Coulter's California, etc. 

Pacific - - - - 
De Strzelecki's New South Wales - 
Dunlop's Central America 
Erman's Travels through Siberia - 
Gardiner's Sights in Italy 
Jones's Norway Guide - - - 
Kip's Holydays in Rome 
Laing's Tour in Sweden 
Mackay's English Lakes 
Marryat's Borneo - - - - 
Mitchell's Expedition into Australia 
Nozrani in Egypt and Syria - 
Parrot's Ascent of Mount Ararat - 
Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck 
Von Orlich's Travels in India 
Wilson's Travels in the Holy Land 



9 
9 
10 
10 
11 
15 
15 
16 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
27 
31 
32 



VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



Pocket and the Stud 

Stable Talk and Table Talk - 

Thomson on Fattening Cattle 



- 25 

- 29 

- SO 



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8 NEW WORKS and NEW EDITIONS 



C ALLCOTT. --HOME AMONG STRANGERS: 

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C ALLCOTT.— A SCRIPTURE HERBAL: 

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CARTOONS.— THE PRIZE CARTOONS EXHIBITED IN WESTMINSTER- 

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Or, the Shell Cabinet arranged : being an Introduction to the modern System of Conchology; 
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Shells, and a complete Descriptive List of the Families and Genera. By Agnes Catlow. 
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CHALENOR. — WALTER CRAY, 

A Ballad, and other Poems. By Mary Chalenor. 2d Edition, with Additions, including the 
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COLLINS.— MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ. R.A. 

Including Selections from his Journals and Correspondence, Notices of many of his 
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Collins, Esq. With Portrait after Linnell, and 2 Vignettes from Sketches by the Painter. 
2 vols, post Svo. 21s. cloth. 

COLTON — LACON; OR, MANY THINGS IN FEW WORDS. 

By the Rev. C. C. Colton. New Edition. 8vo. 12s. cloth. 

CONVERSATIONS ON BOTANY. 

New Edition, improved. Foolscap Svo. with 22 Plates, 7s. 6d. cloth; with coloured Plates, I2s. 

CONVERSATIONS ON MINERALOGY. 

With Plates, engraved by Mr. and Mrs. Lowry, from Original Drawings. Third Edition, 
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CONYBEARE AND HOWSON. — THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL; 

comprising a complete Biography of the Apostle, and a Paraphrastic Translation of his 
Epistles inserted in Chronological order. Edited by the Rev. W. J. Conybeare, M. A. late 
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and the Rev. J . S. Howson, M. A. Principal of the 
Collegiate Institution, Liverpool. 2 vols. 4to., richly illustrated by numerous Engravings 
on Steel and Wood of the Principal Places visited by the Apostle, from Original Drawings 
made on the spot by W. H. Bartlett ; and by Maps, Charts, Coins, etc. 
%* To le publishedin Monthly Parts, price 2s. each ; the First of which will appear in the 
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COOPER (THE REV. E.)-SERMONS, 

Chiefly designed to elucidate some of the leading Doctrines of the Gospel. By the Rev. Edward 
Cooper. New Edition. 2 vols. 12mo. 10s. boards. 

COOPER (THE REV. E.)— PRACTICAL AND FAMILIAR SERMONS. 

New Edition. 7vols.l2mo. 1/. 18s. boards. 

COPLAND.— A DICTIONARY OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE; 

Comprising General Pathology, the Nature and Treatment of Diseases, Morbid Structures, 
and the Disorders especially'incidental to Climates, to Sex, and to the different Epochs of 
Life, with numerous approve'd Formulae of the Medicines recommended. By James Copland, 
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COQUEREL,— CHRISTIANITY; 

Its perfect adaptation to the Mental, Moral, and Spiritual Nature of Man. Ey Athanase 
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COSTELLO (MISS).— FALLS, LAKES, AND MOUNTAINS OF NORTH 

WALES; being a Pictorial Tour through the most interesting parts of the Country. By 
Louisa Stuart Costello, author of "The Rose Garden of Persia, ' etc. Profusely illustrated 
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9 



COULTER.— ADVENTURES ON THE WESTERN COAST OF SOUTH 

! AMERICA AND IN THE INTERIOR OF CALIFORNIA. Including a Narrative of Iiici- 

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j in the Pacific Ocean. With an Account of the Natural Productions, and the Manners and 

| Customs, in Peace and War, of the various Savage Tribes visited. By John Coulter, M.D. 

author of "Adventures in the Pacific." 2 vols. post8vo. 16s. cloth. 
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i but a honest straightforward denunciation of all that is base and wicked, and a warm 
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COULTER.— ADVENTURES IN THE PACIFIC; 

With Observations on the Natural Productions, Manners and Customs of the Natives of the 
various Islands ; Remarks on the Missionaries, British and other Residents, etc. ByJohn 
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CRESY (E.)— AN ENCYC LOP/EDI A OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, HISTORICAL, 

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CROCKER'S ELEMENTS OF LAND SURVEYING. 

Fifth Edition, corrected throughout, and considerably improved and modernised, by 
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ment. Post 8vo. 12s. cloth. 

* 4 * Mr. Farley's Tables of Six-Figure Logarithms may be had separately, price is. 6<Z. 

D'AGINCOURT. — THE HISTORY OF ART, 

By its Monuments, from its Decline in the Fourth Century to its Restoration in the Six- 
teenth. Translated from the French of Seroux D'Agincourt, by Owen Jones, architect. 
With 3,335 Subjects, engraved on 328 Plates. Vol. I. Architecture, 73 plates; vol. II. 
Sculpture, 51 plates; vol. 111. Painting, 204 plates. 3 vols, royal folio, 51. 5s. sewed. 



DALE (THE REV. THOMAS). —THE DOMESTIC LITURGY AND 

FAMILY CHAPLAIN, in Two Parts: the First Part being Church Services adapted for 
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DE JAENISCH AND WALKER.— DE JAENISCH'S CHESS PRECEPTOR: 

A New Analysis of the Openings of Games. By C. F. De Jaenisch, of St. Petersburgh. 
Translated from the French, with copious Notes, by G. Walker, author of "Chess Studies,'' 
and various other Works on the Game of Chess. 8vo. 15s. cloth. 

DE LA BECHE.— REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF CORNWALL, DEVON, 

AND WESTSOMERSET. By Henry T. De la Beche, F.R.S. etc., Director of the Ordnance 
Geological Survey. Published by Order of the Lords Commissioners of H . M. Treasury. 
8vo. with Maps, Woodcuts, and 121arge Plates, 14s. cloth. 

DE LA GRAVIERE.— SKETCHES OF THE LAST NAVAL WAR. 

Translated from the French of Captain E. Jurien de laGraviere ■, with an Introduction, and 
Explanatory Notes. By the Hon. Captain Plunkett,R. N., author of " The Past and Future 
of the British Navy." 2 vols, post 8vo. with Plans, 18s. cloth. 

DE STRZELECKI (P. E.) — PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF NEW SOUTH 

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coloured Map and numerous Plates, 24s. cloth. 

DIBDIN (THE REV. T. F.)-THE SUNDAY LIBRARY: 

Containing nearly One hundred Sermons by eminent Divines. With Notes, etc. by the 
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DISCIPLINE. 

By the Author of " Letters to my Unknown Friends," "Twelve Years Ago," and M Some 
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10 



NEW WORKS and NEW EDITIONS 



DOUBLEDAY AND HEWITSON'S BUTTERFLIES.— THE GENERA OF 

DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA ; comprising their Generic Characters-a Notice of the Habits 
and Transformations — and a Catalogue of the Species of each Genus. By Edward Double- 
day, Esq. F.L.S.etc, Assistant in the Zoological Department of the British Museum. Im- 
perial 4to. uniform with Gray and Mitchell's Ornithology; illustrated with 75 coloured Plates, 
by W. C. Hewitson, Esq. Author of "British Oology.'' 
*,* Publishing in Monthly Parts, 5s. each; eachPart consisting of two cnlonred Plates, with 
accompanying Letter-press. To be completed in^about 40 Parts, 25 of w hie h are now ready . 



DRESDEN GALLERY.— THE MOST CELEBRATED PICTURES OF THE 

ROYAL GALLERY at DRESDEN, drawn on Stone, from the Originals, by Eranz 
Hanfstaengel : with Descriptive and Biographical Notices, in French and German. Nos. I. 
to LII., imperial folio, each containing 3 Plates with accompanying Letter-press, price 
20s. to Subscribers; to Non-subscribers, 30s. Single Plates, lis. each. 

To be completed in 8 more numbers, price 20s. each, to Subscribers; Nos. LI. to LX. 
containing each 4 Plates and Letterpress. 

DRUMMOND. — OBSERVATIONS ON NATURAL SYSTEMS OF BO- 
TANY. By James L. Drummond, M.D. Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal 
Belfast Institution ; author of " First Steps to Botany," and "Letter to a Young Naturalist." 
Foolscap 8vo. 3s. cloth. 

DUNLOP.— TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 

With a Journal of nearly Three Years' Residence in the Country. To which are added, a 
Sketch of the History of the Republic, and an Account of its Climate, Productions, Com- 
merce, etc. By Robert Glasgow Dunlop, Esq. Post Svo. with Map, 10s. 6d. cloth. 

DUNLOP (JOHN).— THE HISTORY OF FICTION: 

Being a Critical Account of the most celebrated Prose Works of Fiction, from the earliest 
Greek Romances to the Novels of the Present Age. By John Dunlop. NewEditiou, com- 
plete in One Volume. Medium Svo. 15*. cloth. 

EASTLAKE.— MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF OIL PAINTING. 

By Charles Lock Eastlake, Esq. R.A. F.R.S. F.S.A. Secretary to the Royal Commission for 
Promoting the Fine Arts in connexion with the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament, etc. 
8vo. 16s. cloth. 

%* Vol. II. On the Italian Practice of Oil Painting, is preparing for publication. 

ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PREACHER. 

The Words of the Preacher, Son of David, King of Jerusalem, from the Holy Scriptures. 
Being the Twelve Chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes , elegantly illuminated, in the Missal 
Style" by Owen Jones. Imperial Svo. in a magnificent carved binding, 42s. ; or handsomely 
bound in red morocco, 50s. 

ECCLESTON (JAMES). — AN INTRODUCTION TO ENCLISH ANTIQUITIES. 

Intended as a Companion to the History of England. By James Eccleston, B .A. Head 
Master of Sutton Coldfield Grammar School. 8vo. with numerous Engravings on Wood, 
21s. cloth. 

ELLIOTSON.— HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY: . . 

With which is incorporated much of the ElementaryPart of the "Institutiones Physiologic* 
of J. F. Blumenbach, Professor in the University of Gottingen. By John Elliotson, M.D. 
Cantab. F.R.S. Fifth Edition, Svo. with numerous Woodcuts, 21. 2s. cloth. 

THE ENGLISHMAN'S CREEK CONCORDANCE OF THE NEW TESTA- 
MENT; being an attempt at a Verbal Connexion between the Greek and the English 
Texts ; includiug a Concordance to the Proper Names, with Indexes, Greek-English 
aud English-Greek. 2d Edition, carefully revised, with a new Index, Greek and English. 
Royal Svo. 42s. 

THE ENGLISHMAN'S HEBREW AND CHALDEE CONCORDANCE OF 

THE OLD TESTAMENT; being an attempt at a Verbal Connexion between the Original 
and the English Translations: with Indexes, a List of the Proper Names and their occur- 
rences, etc. etc. 2 vols, royal 8vo. 3/. 13s. 6d. cloth ; large paper, 4/. 14s. 6d. 

EPHEMERA.— A HAND-BOOK OF ANGLING) 

Teaching Fly Fishing, Trolling, Bottom Fishing, and Salmon Fishme. \\ ith the Natural 
History of River Fish, and the best Modes of Catching them. By Ephemera (of Hell s 
Life in London). New Edition. Foolscap Svo. with Wood Engravings, Ss. cloth. 

ERMAN.— TRAVELS IN SIBERIA: o t , 

Including Excursions Northwards, down the Obi, to the Polar Circle, and Southwards, 
^rane" Frontier. ByAdolph Erman. Translated by W . D. Cooler, Esq. authoi - of 
"TheHistorvof Maritime and Inland Discovery;" translator and editor of Dr. Parrot s 
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11 



ETHERIDGE. — THE APOSTOLICAL ACTS AND EPISTLES, 

From the Peschito, or Ancient Syriac. To which are added, the remaining- Epistles, and 
the Book of Revelation, after a later Syrian Text. Translated, with Prolegomena and 
Indices, by J. W. Etheridge, M.A. Doctor in Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg, 
and Member of the Asiatic Society of Paris ; author of "The Syrian Churches ; their early 
History, Liturgies, and Literature." Royal 12mo. 7s. 6d. cloth. 

EVANS. — THE SUGAR PLANTER'S MANUAL; 

Being a Treatise on the Art of obtaining Sugar from the Sugar Cane. By W. J.Evans,M.D. 
8vo. 9*. cloth. 

FAREY. — TREATISE ON THE STEAM-ENGINE, 

Historical, Practical, and Descriptive. By John Farey, Engineer. 4to. illustrated by 
numerous Woodcuts, and 25 Copper-plates, 51. 5s. in boards. 



FERGUSSON.— AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY INTO THE TRUE PRIN- 
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By James Fergusson, Esq., author of *« An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem," 
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Copperplates, a coloured Lithographic Engraving, and upwards of 100 Woodcuts. Imperial 
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FIELD.— PRISON DISCIPLINE; 

And the Advantages of the Separate System of Imprisonment: with a detailed Account of 
the Discipline now pursued in the New County Gaol at Reading. By the Rev. J. Field, M.A. 
Chaplain. New Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 20*. cloth. 



FLOWERS AND THEIR KINDRED THOUGHTS; 

A Series of Stanzas— On Hope, Innocence, Modesty, Childhood, Humility, Joy, Love, 
Constancy, Fascination, Timidity, Fine Taste, Thoughts, Recollection, and Friendship. By 
Mary Anne Bacon. Illustrated by the Snowdrop, Primrose, Violet, Harebell and Pimpernel, 
Lily of the Valley, Hawthorn, Rose, Honeysuckle, Carnation, Convolvulus, Fuchsia, Pansy, 
Forget-me-not, and Holly ; designed and printed in Colours by Owen Jones. Imperial 8vo. 
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FORSTER (REV. C.)--THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ARABIA; 

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cloth. 

FORSTER (REV. C.) — THE LIFE OF JOHN JEBB, D.D. F.R.S. 

Late Bishop of Limerick. With a Selection from his Letters. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B.D., 
Rector of Stisted, Essex. New Edition. 8vo. with Portrait, 16s. cloth. 

FOSTER.— THE HAND-BOOK OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. 

By Mrs. Foster. Foolscap 8vo. [Nearly ready. 

FOSS.— THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND: 

With Sketches of their Lives, and Miscellaneous Notices connected with theCourts at West- 
minster from the time of the Conquest. By Edward Foss, F.S.A., of the Inner Temple. 
Vols. 1. and II. 8vo. 28s. cloth. 
** Mr. Foss is an original inquirer, By laborious investigation of obscure records, as 
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by the specimen before us. We like his arrangement and method of proceeding with these 
early reigns. It supplies what was much wanted, — a regular and progressive account of 
English legal institutions. The result is a correction oj many errors, an addition of much 
new information, and a better general view of our strictly legal history, than any jurist, 
historian, or biographer had heretofore attempted to give. We shall watch the progress of 
this work with interest. The completion will worthily connect the name of its author with 
those of the more valuable contributors to English historical study.' 1 — Examiner. 

FROM OXFORD TO ROME : AND, HOW IT FARED WITH SOME WHO 

LATELY MADE THE JOURNEY. By a Companion Traveller. New Edition, revised and 
corrected. Fcp. 8vo. with Frontispiece, 6s. cloth. 

GARDINER.— SIGHTS IN ITALY: 

With some Account of the Present State of Music and the Sister Arts in that Country. By 
William Gardiner, author of "Sacred Melodies," etc.; Member of the Academy of St. 
Cecilia, Rome ; and of the Class of Fine Arts of the InstitutHistorique of France. 8vo. with 
engraved Music, 16s. cloth. 



12 



NEW WORKS and NEW EDITIONS 



GERTRUDE. 

A Tale. By the author of "Amv Herbert." Edited bv the Rev. William Sewell. B.D., of 
Exeter College, Oxford. New Edition. 2 rols. foolscap Svo. 9s. cloth. 

GIBBON.-HISTORy OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN 

EMPIRE. A new Edition, in One Volume ; with an Account of the Author's Life and 
Writings, by Alexander Chalmers, Esq. F.A.S. Svo. with Portrait, 1S«. cloth. 

%* An Edition in S vols. Svo. 60a. boards. 

GOLDSMITH— THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Illustrated by Wood Engravings, from Designs by Members of the Etching Club. Edited 
by Bolton Corney, Esq. Square crown Svo., uniform with ** Thomson's Seasons," 2i«. 
cloth; or 36«. bound in morocco, by Hay day. 

GOWER. — THE SCIENTIFIC PHENOMENA OF DOMESTIC LIFE FAMILIARLY 

EXPLAINED. By Charles Foote Gower. New Edition. Foolscap Svo. with Engravings 
on Wood, 5*. cloth. 

GRAHAM.— ENCLISH; OR, THE ART OF COMPOSITION 

explained in a Series of Instructions and Examples. By G. F. Graham. NewEdition, re- 
vised and improved. Foolscap Sto. 6*. cloth. 

GRANT (MRS.)— LETTERS FROM THE MOUNTAINS. 

Being the Correspondence with her Friends, between the years 1~73 and 1S03. By Mrs. 
Grant, of Laggan. 6th Edition. Edited, with Notes and Additions, by her Son, J. P. Grant, 
Esq. 2 vols, post Svo. 21*. cloth. 

GRANT (MRS., OF LAGGAN). — MEMOIR AND CORRESPONDENCE 

of the late Mrs. Grant, of Lagg-an, author of 11 Letters from the Mountains," etc. Edited 
by her Son, J. P. Grant, Esq. NewEdition. 3 vols, post Svo. Portrait, 1/. lis. 6d. cloth. 

GRAY (THOMAS). -CRAY'S ELEGY, 

Written in a Country Churchyard. Illuminated in the Missal style. By Owen Jones, 
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GRAY.— LECTURES ON THE NATURE AND USE OF MONEY. 

Delivered before the Members of the "Edinburgh Philosophical Institution," during the 
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GRAY AND MITCHELL'S ORNITHOLOGY.— THE CENERA OF BIRDS; 

Comprising their Generic Characters, a Notice of the Habits of each Genus, and an exten- 
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Georg. Florent. Soc. Corresp. Senior Assistant of the Zoological Department, British 
Museum; and author of the "List of the Genera of Birds," etc. Imperial 4to. illustrated 
with 350 Plates, by David William Mitchell, B.A. 
*»* In course of publication in Monthly Parts, 10s. 6<f. each; each Part consisting of Four 

coloured Plates and Three plain, with Letter-press. The Work will be completed in about 

50 Parts, of which 46 have appeared. 

Order I.— Accipitres has been completed, and may be had separately. . Imperial Svo. with 15 
coloured and 12 plain Plates, 21. Ss. boards. 

GRIMBLOT (P.) — LETTERS OF WILLIAM III. AND LOUIS XIV. AND OF 

THEIR MINISTERS. Illustrating the Domestic and Foreign Policy of England from the 
Peace of Ryswick to the Accession of Philip V. of Spain, (169/ to 1/70). Edited by P. 
Grimblot. 2 vols. Svo." 30s. cloth. 
" The original correspondence of the two Monarchs cannot be otherwise than deeply inte- 
resting, and a most valuable addition to our sources of historical information. Jt is but 
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credit. '.We rejoice to see documents of such vast public importance^ and so amply illustrative 
of private character, become public property John Bull. 

GWILT. —AN ENCYCLOP/EDIA OF ARCHITECTURE; 

Historical, Theoretical, and Practical. By Joseph Gwilt, Esq., F.S.A. Illustrated with 
upwards of 1,000 Engravings on Wood, from Designs by J. S. Gwilt. 8vo. 2/. 12*. 6d. cloth. 

HALL. —MIDSUMMER EVE: 

A Fairy Tale of Love. By Mrs. S. C. Hall. Square crown 8vo. with nearly 300 Wood 
Engravings, 21«. cloth, gilt edges. 



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13 



HALL'S (SIDNEY) GENERAL LARGE LIBRARY ATLAS OF FIFTY- 

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and Longitude. An entirely New Edition, corrected throughout from the best and most 
j recent Authorities; with all the Railways laid down, and many of the Maps re-drawn and 

re-engraved. 

#** Publishing in Monthly Parts, of which 14 have appeared. To he completed 
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HARRISON.— ON THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STRUCTURE 

OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By the Rev. M. Harrison, M.A., late Fellow of Queen's 
College, Oxford. Post 8vo. 8s. 6rf. cloth. 

HAWBUCK GRANGE; 

Or, the Sporting Adventures of Thomas Scott, Esq. By the Author of " Handley Cross ; or 
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! HAWKER.-INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN 

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I HAYDON (B. R.)-LECTURES ON PAINTING AND DESIGN, 

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j HINTS ON ETIQUETTE AND THE USAGES OF SOCIETY: 

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HISTORICAL PICTURES OF THE MIDDLE ACES, 

In Black and White. Made on the spot, from Records in the Archives of Switzerland. By a 
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HOARE.— A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF A NEW METHOD OF 

PLANTING AND MANAGING THE ROOTS OF GRAPE VINES. By Clement Hoare, 
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HOARE— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE 

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; HOLLAND.— MEDICAL NOTES AND REFLECTIONS. 

j By Henry Holland, M.D.F.R.S. etc. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician 

Extraordinary to the Queen , and Physician in Ordinary to His Royal H ighness Prince Albert . 
NewEdition. 8vo. 18s. cloth. 

| HOOK (DR. W. F.)— THE LAST DAYS OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY; 

A Course of Lectures on the principal Events of Passion Week. By Walter Farquhar Hook, 
D.D., Vicar of Leeds, Prebendary of Lincoln, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. New 
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I HOOKER. — KEW GARDENS ; 

Or a Popular Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew. By Sir William Jackson Hooker, 
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i HOOKER.— THE BRITISH FLORA. 

Comprising the Phaeiiogamous or Flowering Plants , and the Ferns. By Sir William Jackson 
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Vol. II. in Two Parts, comprising the Cryptogamia and the Fungi, completing the British 
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LOUDON.— HORTUS BRITANNICUS: 

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LOUDON.-HORTUS LICNOSUS LONDINENSIS; 

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LOW.— AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE SIMPLE BODIES OF 

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.... .. . , — — — .. |jg 



26 



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28 



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29 



SOUTHEY (ROBERT). — THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE 

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= 3* 



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